The Universe Was Wide Enough
by Artemis Sherwood
Summary: Diana Scott wakes up in an underwater base in her pajamas and ends up being hurtled across all of time and space. There's no way home to her universe, half her family doesn't even exist, she has a special bond with the TARDIS that no one can understand, the Doctor is a woman (mostly) and the Master is willing to tear the universe apart for her. 1-13/OC, Missy/OC, 12/Clara/OC
1. Under the Lake: Part 1

Shades of blue, gold, purple, and red all swirled around me like a silent hurricane of colors. Peeking through the colorful mist were tiny pinpricks of light - stars - and planets of a million different sizes, all of them whizzing past me. Confused, I looked around and realized that I was floating. The mist had formed some kind of vortex around me and I hovered right in the middle of it, my arms and legs mere feet from brushing against the edges. A bolt of lightning shot across the vortex, narrowly missing my face and then-

I stirred, my ears ringing with the echo of a loud, shuddering wheeze. I was on the floor. How did that happen? I started to rub my eyes, but ended up knocking my knuckles against my glasses. I took them off, cleaned them with the corner of my shirt, and then slipped them back on. When I looked up, I expected to see my bedroom wall. Instead, I saw an enormous monster hovering in front of me with its serpentine face spread wide to show its gleaming fangs. I screamed and scrambled backwards on my hands until I ran into something.

I looked over my shoulder to see an overturned metal chair with an orange, plastic seat. "What the-?" I looked back at the monster and sighed in relief when I realized that the monster was just a mural. It wasn't even real. But then I realized something else. I got to my feet and looked around in confusion.

Across the room, perpendicular to the mural, was an open doorway where two people skidded to a stop. One was a tall, thin woman with dark brown skin and short, silver hair shaved on the sides, like mine. A gold stud pierced her right nostril and she wore black trousers with a red lined coat. The second person was much shorter. She was pale and her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. And she looked incredibly familiar.

" _Diana?_ " the two women exclaimed.

They both started towards me and I immediately backed away, stumbling over a chair leg and then bumping into a table. I suddenly recognized the younger woman as Clara Oswald. She and the older woman paused; they looked worriedly at me, then at each other.

"Diana?" the older woman asked with a Scottish accent. "What's wrong?"

My voice trembled when I spoke. "Where am I?"

"We don't know yet. We just got here," Clara said. "We heard you scream. What happened?"

I glanced hesitantly at the mural, but didn't allow my eyes to leave the two women for more than a second. The silver haired woman started towards me very slowly, but she stopped again when I backed away. She stared curiously at me and then a second later, her steel blue eyes widened. She stepped back and grabbed Clara's hand as she whispered something in her ear. Clara shook her head, looking between her companion and myself.

"Is this a dream?"

Clara smiled, but her eyes were sad. "Diana-"

"Yes!" the other woman interjected. "Yes, it's a dream."

I furrowed my brows. "Then where's the Doctor?" I questioned. The woman's half smile disappeared and her shoulders dropped. "You are Clara, aren't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then where's the Doctor?"

Clara's wide, brown eyes locked on the semi wrinkled face of the woman at her side. She squeezed the woman's hand and smiled again. " _She's_ the Doctor," Clara answered.

The more I looked at the strange woman, the more it made sense. She wore the Doctor's iconic jacket and the golden ring he wore on his left hand. Her hair was much like his: curly and cut short, except for the shaved off parts on either side of her head. But she was a woman and her skin was much darker than his had ever been. _Then again, this wouldn't be the first time I've dreamt of a female Doctor,_ I reminded myself.

"You okay now?" Clara wondered.

"Um. Yeah," I said with a nod.

"Good." Clara dropped the woman's hand - the _Doctor_ \- and started across the room. On the left side of the mural, a knife was stuck in the wall. She flicked the handle and it twanged. "Doctor, look at this."

The Doctor looked around, her fidgeting hands clasped in front of her chest. "Well, Clara, looks like you got your wish," she sighed.

I followed the Doctor's example and turned to look at the rest of the room. We were in a cafeteria, but the tables were pushed into odd placements and several chairs had been overturned. Food had been haphazardly thrown across table tops and the floor, and some of the silverware seemed to have been thrown as well. Like the knife Clara had found, a handful of forks and other knives were stuck in other parts of the wall.

"Food fight?" Clara suggested.

"I think there was more to it than that. Whatever it was, it happened pretty recently." I looked back at the Doctor as she twirled her finger in the contents of a cup. "Seven or eight hours ago. No bodies, though."

 _Bodies?_ I brushed my hair out of my eyes, then froze as I noticed something different about the far wall. A chill ran up my spine as I spotted a fish swimming through the murky, dark teal water past the enormous windows. _Is that the ocean? Please don't be the ocean._

"Oh, yeah." I turned my back to the windows so I wouldn't see the endless mass of water that surrounded the building. Clara walked over to the Doctor with a grin. "You see, this is more like it." She raised her hand and wiggled her eyebrows at the Doctor, waiting for the Time Lord - _Lady_ \- to high five her. "Oh, come on. Don't leave me hanging."

The Doctor rolled her eyes and left the room through the same doorway she and Clara had entered through. With a resigned sigh, Clara dropped her hand and started after her. She looked back at me as she stepped through the doorway. "Come on," she urged before disappearing around the corner.

I glanced back at the windows and shivered at the sight, then hurried after the pair. Clara was waiting just outside the doorway and grabbed my hand. She pulled me down the corridor, around a few corners, and released me when she spotted the Doctor a few paces ahead of us. The Doctor looked back at us and smiled; she pointed down the corridor, where two men were kneeling in front of a wall.

"Look," she whispered. "Crew! See? I knew this place hadn't been abandoned." The Doctor glanced back at me, but her expression seemed to fall flat when I quickly looked away. She whispered something to Clara and then started down the corridor.

"Hey." Clara took my hand and laced her fingers with mine. Her fingers were thin and short, and the tips were cold against my skin. "Follow me."

Still several feet ahead of us, the Doctor cleared her throat. "Hello, sailors!" The two men stood and when they turned around, I felt my blood run cold. They were almost translucent and their eyes were nothing more than empty, gaping black holes. Clara tightened her fingers around my hand. "Right, I did not expect that. Hands up, who expected that."

The Doctor backed up, nearly stepping on my feet, but moved to the side at the last minute so she could stand beside me. She took my hand and I instinctively held it tighter. "Wait," she said as the men approached us. "Don't move. I don't think they're going to hurt us. I think that they're just curious."

One of the men stood as tall as the Doctor; he stared at her, lips moving soundlessly, as he tilted his head to the side as if he was inspecting her. The other man, a few inches shorter than the Doctor and still much taller than me, was staring at Clara. Suddenly, both men turned to look at me and leaned closer to my face.

"Are you sure?" Clara asked.

I could see the Doctor shrug from the corner of my eye. "Well, I mean, define sure." She tried to move her head and grab their attention, but the men were focused solely on me. "Look at you lovely chaps. What's happened to you, then?"

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the men turned and walked away. I let out a breath; had I been holding it the entire time? The Doctor tugged on my hand and looked back at Clara and I, grinning excitedly. "Come on," she murmured.

Clara rubbed her thumb across the back of my hand several times in quick succession. "What are they?"

The Doctor peeked around the corner. "I haven't a clue. Isn't that exciting?"

I shook my head firmly. As the Doctor led us down another corridor, I could feel my hands begin to shake. Ghosts were cool, but not when they were eye-less, murderous, and under water. Based on my experiences with nightmares and my knowledge of the episode this dream seemed to be based upon, I knew that I needed to wake up soon before it got any worse. No dream of Clara and a lady Doctor was worth ghosts going on a killing spree.

The Doctor pulled Clara and I through another doorway, which entered into a large hangar. "Where did they go?" Clara asked, dropping my hand to go ahead of us. On our right was a large, futuristic looking ship with what looked like plane engines attached to the side. "What is it, some kind of submarine?"

The Doctor shook her head as she guided me to the very back of the ship. "No, it's alien," she said. The entire back end of the ship was exposed, revealing the pure white interior and minimalistic design.

Clara spun around on her toes and looked between the Doctor and I. I glanced up at the Time Lady, who wiggled her eyebrows and started for the stairs leading into the ship. Clara followed her with a grin and an excited hop in her step. There was a large, white rectangle in the center of the shallow room and nothing else. The Doctor ran her hand along the edge of the object, her skin seemingly darker against the surface.

 _The dream's only just starting_ , I told myself. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the sound of Clara's heels on the floor of the ship. _You've done this before, Diana. Just wake up. You can dream about pretty ladies another time when there aren't creepy ghosts involved._

Normally when I managed to force myself out of a bad dream, I could feel my head spinning as I woke up. But when I opened my eyes, I was still in the large hangar and there was no spinning sensation in my head. The Doctor was still a woman and she was still inspecting the ship with Clara.

I closed my eyes again. _Come on. Just wake up. I don't want to be stuck under God knows how much water with scary ass ghosts! Wake up-_

"Diana?" The Doctor's Scottish accent drew me out of my thoughts. She was standing at the top of the stairs with Clara beside her, both of them staring wide eyed at me. "Don't turn 'round."

Of course, I immediately turned around and gasped when I spotted the two ghosts standing just a few paces away. I backed away as quickly as I could without tripping, my eyes glued to the ghosts who stared silently at us as they continued to mouth words that neither of us could understand. A hand rested on my shoulder and I jumped, looking up to see the Doctor standing at my side.

"Don't panic," she whispered to me. She glanced down at me and her smile was somehow reassuring. "Take my hand." Her voice was low and serious. Once I wrapped my fingers around her hand, the Doctor looked back at the ghosts. "Hello there! Did you want to show us this? It's very nice."

The shorter ghost turned around and lifted an axe off of its hook on the wall. Clara inhaled sharply as she stood on the Doctor's other side, her arms waving nervously. "Okay, they now appear to be arming themselves."

The Doctor pushed me in the direction of a nearby exit. "Yes, I spotted that, too," she said as she urged me forward. The other ghost grabbed what looked like a harpoon gun and began to approach us. I felt my heart pound against my ribcage as the ghosts rounded on us. The sound of the axehead dragging along the stone floor made my ears ring. "Was it something Clara said? She does that. She once had an argument with Gandhi!"

The axe swung through the air and the Doctor yanked Clara out of the way just in time. We all stumbled backwards, the Doctor continuously looking over her shoulder at the nearby exit. The taller ghost aimed his harpoon gun at us and without hesitating, I ripped my hand from the Doctor's grasp and bolted for the exit. I could hear the Doctor calling my name, but I kept running and rounding corners to put as much distance between me and the ghosts as possible.

I stopped a minute later, breathing heavily as I leaned against the corridor wall. Clara and the Doctor caught up to me a few moments later. They pressed themselves against the wall on either side of me, the Doctor sparing a few quick glances around the doorway to see if the ghosts had followed us.

"Are they gone?" Clara whispered.

"Wait."

A hand appeared next to my head and I yelped I surprise as I stumbled to the other side of the corridor. Clara reached for my arm as she stepped away from the ghost casually walking through the metal wall. The Doctor grabbed Clara by the arm and pushed her to the side, out of the ghost's way. I turned to flee, but skidded to a halt when I saw the other ghost emerge from the floor past an intersection.

Clara tugged on my arm. "Run!" she ordered.

We all turned right, down one of the other corridors that met at the intersection. The corridor ended several paces away at a large metal door, which suddenly opened to reveal a group of people behind it.

"In here!" a woman yelled. "Quick!"

Clara reached the door first, the Doctor just behind her. The Time Lady pulled me through the doorway by my arm and the door immediately slammed shut. I bent over slightly as I tried to catch my breath, while my companions looked through the round window in the door at the ghosts. I leaned against the curved wall of the room and let my breath start to even out. "What are you?" the Doctor whispered.

"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?"

The man's voice cut through the tense silence and I jumped. The Doctor turned away from the window and looked curiously at the man for a moment. Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her psychic paper. "This is Clara, Diana, and I'm the Doctor," she said.

The occupants of the room were two women, both short and pale, and three men, two of which were dark skinned like the Doctor was. They all leaned forward to read the Doctor's psychic paper and one of the men exclaimed, "You're from UNIT!"

"Well, if that's what it says," the Doctor replied with a half smile.

The man with light blond hair gestured to himself and then to the man standing on his right. "I'm Pritchard, this is Bennett."

Before he could continue however, a short woman suddenly leapt in front of the Doctor and grabbed her hand. "O'Donnell!" she exclaimed as she excitedly shook her hand. "Are you _really_ the Doctor? I'm a huge fan!" She giggled and then, realizing that everyone was staring at her, cleared her throat and attempted a serious expression. "I mean, er, you know. Nice work."

The third man waved his hand at the Doctor, grabbing her attention. "Tim Lunn, I sign for Cass," he said.

"Tell me, what about those things out there?" the Doctor asked as she gestured behind her. "What are they? Why are they trying to kill us?"

"Well, they're- uh, they're ghosts," Bennett stammered.

The Doctor flashed him an incredulous expression. "They're not ghosts."

The woman who stood beside Lunn began rapidly moving her hands in sign language. Lunn started to translate, but the Doctor cut him off. "Thank you, but I actually don't need your help. I can speak sign." She turned to Cass and signed as she spoke. "Go ahead."

Cass looked startled for a moment, but then shook it off and began signing again. After just a few seconds, the Doctor shook her head. "No, no, actually, I can't," she sighed. "It's been deleted for semaphore. Someone get me a selection of flags."

"One of the ghosts is our previous commanding officer," Lunn translated. "The other, um, moley guy - we don't know what he is."

The Doctor looked out the window at the taller ghost, who looked more like a Who from Whoville than a mole. "He's from the planet Tivoli."

"See? I told you he was an alien. Didn't I say that?" Bennet asked as he began pacing around the room.

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully. "Weird thing is, they're not violent. They're too cowardly. They wouldn't say boo to a goose. They're more likely to give the goose their car keys and bank details. When did they first appear?"

"Did you see that spaceship in the hangar? Yeah, we found that on the lake bed and we'd just got it on board and one of the engines started up and then Moran got-." O'Donnell halted mid sentence and she visibly swallowed her tears. When she finished, her voice was soft and low. "Moran was killed."

Lunn began translating for Cass again. "Then they appeared and pretty much straight away started trying to kill us. So we grabbed what we could and we were looking for somewhere to hide, and that's when we realized the ghosts couldn't come in here."

"What is this place?" Clara wondered, wrapping her hand around the Doctor's elbow.

"It's a Faraday cage," she explained. "Completely impenetrable to radio waves and, apparently, whatever those things are out there." I looked around the small, circular room and noticed the metal slates attached the the walls, which were likely what made the Faraday cage impenetrable. "So, who's in charge now? I need to know who to ignore."

"That would be me. Er, her," Lunn corrected himself with a gesture to Cass.

The blond man spoke up again. "Actually, that would be me." He reached into his shirt pocket and handed a yellow and black business card with his name and title written on it to the Doctor. "I represent Vector Petroleum. We've obtained the mining rights to the oil."

"The oil?" Clara repeated. "What oil?"

"And where are we?" the Doctor added, flinging Pritchard's business card onto the floor.

Bennett readjusted his glasses. "This used to be a military training site. There was a dam overlooking it, but the dam burst and the valley was submerged."

"Then twenty years ago, we discovered a massive oil reservoir underneath it,"Pritchard said as he tucked the business card back into his pocket.

A low hum sounded in the cage and the lights suddenly brightened. A computerized voice began speaking from somewhere in the ceiling. "Good morning," said the vaguely pleasant voice. "Entering day mode."

O'Donnell smiled as Cass opened the door. "Okay, it's morning," the woman said with a sigh of relief. "We can go outside now."

I peeked around the open door to find the lights brightly illuminating the outside walkways and no sign of the ghosts. Pritchard and O'Donnell left first, with Lunn trailing out slowly behind them.

"Uh, morning?" Clara said.

Bennett grabbed a towel off a hook on the wall and draped it over his shoulders. "Yeah, we're too far below the surface for daylight, so we have to create artificial days and nights."

The Doctor's hands were restless and fidgety as she glanced outside. "I'd like to have a further look at that spaceship, but what about those things that aren't ghosts?"

"Oh, it's all right. They only come out at night."

Clara looked back at the Doctor and tried to smile. "Weird how that is not comforting."

The crew led us back to the hangar at the Doctor's request. She remained at the front of the group with Pritchard and Bennett, trying to learn more about the ghosts and the base. Clara stayed back with me, not speaking but occasionally looking at me when she thought I couldn't see her. Cass and Lunn trailed behind us at the very back of the group, signing quickly to each other, with O'Donnell right in front of them.

"You okay?" Clara whispered to me after a few minutes.

The Doctor happened to glance back at us then and I saw an unreadable flash of emotion in her eyes. She quickly looked away and continued talking with Pritchard. "Um, yeah, I guess," I mumbled.

"It's just, you're really quiet."

"I have a headache," I lied.

She reached for my hand, but pulled away the moment our fingers touched. It was impossible not to notice the hurt and frustrated expression on Clara's face. Had I done something wrong? _Why does she keep grabbing my hand?_

"Clara?"

"Hm?"

I swallowed a little nervously. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" she asked, not quite looking me in the eyes.

"Try to hold my hand?"

Clara shrugged and fiddled with one of her rings. "Instinct, I guess. We should catch up to the others. They're getting a little ahead of us," she said quickly.

Just ahead of the Doctor, a panel in the wall slid open to reveal the hangar and the alien ship inside. With her hands stuffed inside her trouser pockets, the Doctor raised her voice slightly while Clara and I quickened our pace. "If whatever they are-"

"They're ghosts," Pritchard said.

"They're _not_ ghosts - have been trying to kill you, why haven't you abandoned the base?" she continued.

Pritchard waved his hand somewhat dismissively. "Oh, that was my call. We've got about a trillion dollars worth of mining equipment here." The Doctor stopped walking then, making the rest of us pause as well. "We're not just going to abandon it- What?" Pritchard asked, glancing curiously at the Doctor. "If it all goes pear-shaped, it's not _them_ that lose a bonus."

Clara and I stood slightly behind the Doctor, but I could still see her face. I watched her approach Pritchard with a surprisingly calm expression. She patted him lightly on the arm and smiled sweetly. "It's okay. I understand. You're an idiot." She brushed past him and started across the room, turning on her heels to face the rest of the group as we all trailed after her. "Come to mention it, why is there a Faraday cage on the base?"

"It's the mining equipment," Bennett explained. "It runs on nuclear fission. The Faraday cage has been lined with lead to act as a shelter in the event of a radiation leak."

The Doctor's gray, bushy eyebrows raised and her lips curled into a mischievous smile. "So, we are fighting an unknown homicidal force that has taken the form of your commanding officer and a cowardly alien, underwater, in a nuclear reactor. Anything else I should know? Someone got a peanut allergy, or something?"

She and Clara started inside the ship, excitement and curiosity written plainly across their faces. The Doctor was pacing across the front of the ship, staring at the floor and tapping the toe of her shoe against it. She mumbled something to herself, stroked her chin thoughtfully, and then crouched down to remove a panel from the floor. Glancing up at Clara with another unreadable expression, she started back down the steps.

"What's happened to the stuff you've removed? This is for long haul flights. There should be a suspended animation chamber for the pilot right here," she said, pointing to the floor just behind her. "Plus, one of the power cells is missing."

"Power cell?" Pritchard repeated, hurrying up the steps.

The Doctor hummed. "You can see the casing is empty."

The rest of the crew filed into the ship and grouped around the panel in the floor, everyone except for Cass and Lunn. They had stayed back and were signing rapidly to each other. I watched them for a few moments before giving up on trying to understand them. The Doctor and Clara were concentrated solely on the panel and the crew and whatever seemed to be missing from the ship.

"It's not safe out here!" Lunn shout-whispered, making me and the others look towards him.

"What's the matter?" Clara asked as she started down the stairs.

Gesturing to Cass in frustration, Lunn said, "She won't let me look inside the spaceship. She says it's not safe. I'm saying it's not safe out here."

"I imagine they're pretty valuable," Pritchard said.

The Doctor looked sharply at him. "What?"

"I-I mean powerful. Those power cells. I imagine they're pretty powerful."

The Doctor hummed and barely suppressed an eye roll. "Well, they can zap a vessel from one side of the galaxy to the other, so, you know, take a wild stab in the dark."

"Then the missing one must still be out there."

"Yes, well, otherwi- Sorry," she said, looking at O'Donnell in exasperation, "why is this man still talking to me?"

Pritchard started down the stairs and stood off to the side, eyeing the others silently. The Doctor, O'Donnell, and Bennett exited the ship as Pritchard slipped away to the other side of the room. He glanced over his shoulder and our eyes met. He paused and I quickly looked away, crossing my arms over my chest. When I looked back at him a few seconds later, he had disappeared.

The Doctor moved to stand beside me with Clara just behind her. "So what have we got?" she asked, looking briefly at me with raised eyebrows and an almost-there smile. "Moran dies, and then those things appear. They can walk through walls. They only come out at night and they're sort of see-through."

Clara shook her head, watching the Time Lady pace. "Doctor, wait, you're not saying…?"

"I might be."

"Might I suggest we move to the bridge?" O'Donnell said, glancing between the Doctor and Clara. "We really should be checking the systems by now and we can get you more information on these things, whatever they are, there."

"Could I ask," Bennett said later on our way to the bridge, "why you're wearing pajamas?"

I looked down at my baggy, oversized sleep shirt, patterned cotton pants, and socks. Usually I wore nightgowns or just a shirt and underwear to bed, but it had been cooler than normal the previous night. My stomach churned and I suddenly felt a little off. I stammered a few nonsense words in confusion, unsure of how to respond until Clara answered for me.

"Oh, she was just taking a nap when we got here. She didn't really have time to change because we didn't want to leave her alone in the TARDIS, but the Doctor knew something was wrong and we had to investigate."

"Not even time to get shoes?" Bennett laughed.

I shrugged and attempted a smile. "I forgot," I mumbled, hoping he would drop the question and leave.

We entered the bridge, a well lit room with more white walls and decorated with several control panels, a computer station, and a yellow tinted map displayed near the entrance. There was a large, white table in the center of the room with a few chairs on either side. Bennett and O'Donnell both pulled out a chair and sat down, Bennett's rolling backwards slightly. Cass leaned up against the wall and Lunn moved to stand by the computer station on the far end of the room. Clara pulled out a chair for me and just as I sat down, the Doctor exclaimed, "They're ghosts!"

She had been silent the entire time, ignoring everyone else even when they stared at her in confusion. She laughed and started towards Bennett, grabbing his hand and shaking it excitedly as she walked past him. "Yeah, ghosts," she said.

Clara and I shared a look and she leaned one arm against the back of my chair. "You said there was no such thing," she said. "You actually poo pooed the ghost theory."

"Yes, well, well, there was no such thing as- as socks or smartphones and badgers until there suddenly were! Besides, what else could they be?" she countered, pacing around the entire perimeter of the room. "They're not holograms, they're not flesh avatars, they're not autons, they're not digital copies bouncing around the Nethersphere. No, these people are literally, actually, dead." She paused for a moment and then leaned back against the table, shaking her head. " _Wow_. This is- it's amazing! I've never actually met a proper ghost!"

Cass began signing again, this time visibly upset. "Moran was our friend."

Stepping around the table, Clara lightly tugged on the Doctor's wrist. "The cards," she whispered, just loud enough that I could barely hear her.

The Doctor frowned and then her eyebrows shot up. "Oh! Oh, right you are." She hurried to the head of the table, next to me, and fumbled around in her coat pocket for something.

Clara sighed and stuck her hand in the Time Lady's pocket, pulling out what looked like a stack of prompt cards. She shuffled through each of them until finally choosing one and handing the stack to the Doctor. The Doctor cleared her throat and looked seriously at the card. "I'm very sorry for your loss," she began. "I'll do all I can to solve the death of your friend slash family member slash pet."

The crew all looked at each other, then back at the Doctor, and Clara just shook her head. She took the cards back and shoved them into her coat pocket, sighing with a resigned expression.

The Doctor looked at the crew and smiled. "But don't you see what this means? Death! It was the one thing that unified every single living creature in the universe and now it's gone. How can you just sit there? Don't you want to go out there right now, wrestle them to the ground and ask them questions until your throat falls out? What's death like? Does it hurt? Do you still get hungry? Do you miss being alive? Why can you only handle metal objects? Oh, I didn't know I'd noticed that," she mumbled, obviously surprised. "Okay, so they'll try to kill you. Blah, blah, blah. What does that matter? You come back! A bit murder-y, sure, but even so!" She paused again, taking a deep breath and making a smoothing motion with her hand. "Calm, Doctor, calm. You were like this when you met Shirley Bassey." She shook her head and the excitement passed slightly. "Okay. Question one. What is a ghost? Question two. What do they want?"

Suddenly, the lights overhead shut off and the room fell into darkness only illuminated by the pale yellow lights behind the map and stationed along the floors. O'Donnell jumped up and looked to the computer station.

"Good evening," the overhead computer voice said. "Entering night mode."

"That's not right," O'Donnell said, her hands flying across the keyboard as she checked the systems. "We're switching back into night mode again. This can't happen! No, no, no!"

A loud, echoing bell sounded in the distance and I half jumped out of my seat. Clara and the Doctor glanced at me, then the Doctor looked off into the distance as if she could see her ship through the walls. The cloister bell continued ringing, low and ominous as the lights seemed to flicker.

"The TARDIS," the Doctor muttered.

"Doctor? Doctor!" Clara cried as the Time Lady ran off.

I leapt out of my chair and ran after the two women, the Doctor several paces ahead of us both as she darted through the base. We skidded to a halt when we reached an intersection, almost falling myself as my socks slipped on the floor, the Doctor already scrambling inside. The TARDIS loomed in front of us, reaching nearly double my height, and the light on top blinked slowly as I stared agape at her. A low hum sounded from inside the ship and Clara quickly hurried after the Doctor.

I stared spellbound at the ship instead, hardly believing my own eyes. I peeked through the door left ajar and felt my heart skip a beat or two. A metal walkway ran from the doors to the middle of the room, where an enormous console stretched from floor to ceiling. Metal railings encircled the entirety of the room on two separate levels, the top level decorated with bookcases, a leather chair, and a chalkboard.

"It must be the ghosts," the Doctor said as she circled the console. I stepped onto the metal walkway and cautiously rested my hand on the railing. "That's why she was upset when we got here."

Clara waved her hand and smoke billowed around her face. "Why? I don't understand."

"It's just what I was saying. You live and you die. That's it. The ghosts are aberrations. A splinter of time in the skin. They're unnatural." Looking up at the spinning cogs attached to the ceiling, the Doctor said, "She wants to get away from them."

"So, what do we do?"

Grabbing something on the console, the Doctor yanked her hand down and the cloister bell suddenly stopped. The engines that had been groaning seconds earlier faded away and the red lights switched to white. The door shut behind me and I jumped, eyeing the wooden panel suspiciously.

The Doctor furrowed her brows as she looked around. "Put the handbrake on."

I stepped further down the walkway, my eyes flinching across every inch of the room. The smoke was quickly dissipating as I stepped onto the main platform, my toes curling when I felt grating instead of solid ground through my socks. The ship hummed softly when my fingers hesitantly brushed the console. Warmth spread from my fingers through my arm and settled in my belly and although I had been scared and confused before, those worries seemed suddenly less… worrying.

It was then that I noticed both Clara and the Doctor watching me. I quickly looked away and withdrew my hands so they were folded over my chest again. The Doctor approached me and leaned against the console, awkwardly scratching her chin. "Did you, er, did you want to change clothes?" she asked softly. "Maybe get some shoes?"

I glanced at my feet and nodded. "Yeah."

She turned and pointed to a small set of stairs that led from the console platform to a lower level of the room. "There's a doorway just down there. The TARDIS will show you where to go."

Nodding in thanks, I hurried down the steps and through the doorway. There was a double hallway that led to the left and right with a wall directly in front of me. The lights laid into the walls of the left hallway flashed. Sparing the opposite hallway a glance, I started towards the lights. There was a closed doorway with a button at the end, only a few paces away, and as I approached the door I heard Clara start to speak.

"You're distancing yourself," she said, her voice drifting down the hallway.

"You picked up on that, did you?"

Clara sighed. "Look, it hurts me just as much as it hurts you. But she needs both of us, Theta, you know that."

I moved so I was leaning against the wall with my head titled in the direction of the console room. "I thought I was ready," the Doctor said softly and I strained to hear her properly. "I thought I could handle this. But the way she looks at me, like- like I'm not real-"

"Like you're a dream."

"I was thinking of… leaving earlier. Just leaving the base so I could show her, _prove_ to her that it's not a dream. This isn't what I wanted her first memories to be of."

"I know. But there's nothing we can do to change that now. We're here and I know you won't actually leave. Not when all their lives are at stake."

The TARDIS groaned then and I pushed off of the wall. The light above the doorway blinked and I quickly pressed the button, hurrying through as the door opened and closed with a low hiss. The ship had clearly directed me to the wardrobe. The room was about the size of a regular store with rows and rows of clothing hanging up on portable racks. There was a full-size mirror at the front of the room, held a few inches off the ground by a stand and a chair right next to it. A pair of jeans, a few shirts, and a skirt were folded on top of the cushion.

 _Something tells me these are going to fit,_ I thought with a smile. Luckily enough for me, I'd gone to bed with a sports bra and underwear the night before and didn't have to worry about finding new undergarments. I quickly changed into the more comfortable looking shirt, a black v-neck, and considered the skirt. It was ankle length with diagonal black and white stripes, and didn't require a belt like the jeans would. _Comfortable and easy to run in. Skirt it is._

Placed against the wall behind me was a large case full of shelves with dozens of shoes. I opted for a pair of sandals that strapped behind my foot at my Achilles tendon and then headed back to the console room. As I rounded the corner, I froze mid-step and felt my jaw fall open as I spotted Clara and the Doctor hugging. The Doctor was leaning against the console, her arms loose around Clara's hips and her lips pressed to Clara's temple.

"What the hell?" I whispered.

Clara spotted me first, quickly pulling out the Doctor's arms and walking around the console towards me as I stepped onto the platform. She smiled bashfully at me and tucked the longer strands of her bangs behind her ears. The Doctor completely avoided looking me in the eyes and fiddled with a few of the switches on the console.

"Hey," Clara said. "You look nice."

I smiled and adjusted my glasses, noticing that she'd taken off her leather jacket. "Thanks."

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah."

Starting for the doors with a spring in her step, Clara gestured to the Doctor with a wave of her hand. "Come on, then!"

The Doctor hurried after her, shaking her head. "Whoa! Ho, ho, ho, ho! Where do you think you're going?"

Clara furrowed her brows in confusion. "Out there, where the action is."

Scratching her head, the Doctor turned towards the console for a moment. "Look, you, er-"

"What? What is it?"

"This is my own fault," the Time Lady sighed. "I like adventures as much as the next person. If the next person is a person who likes adventures. Even so, don't- don't go native."

"What do you mean? I'm not."

The Doctor gestured emptily. "Look, there's a whole dimension in here, but there's only room for one me."

"Now wait a second. _You_ just raved about ghosts like a kid who had too much sherbet! And besides, Di basically gets to be you two point O." Clara protested.

"Oh, d'you know what you need? You need a hobby."

Clara laughed and shook her head. "I really don't."

"Or even better, another person in our relationship." I looked at the Doctor like she was insane. "Come on, you lot, you're bananas about relationships! You're always writing songs about them, or going to war, or getting tattooed."

"That's not how we work and you know it."

"I know, but-"

"Doctor, I'm fine."

The Doctor ran a hand through her hair and then looked down at her hands. "I just felt that I-I-I had to say something," she stammered.

"I know." Stepping forward, Clara smoothed her hands over the Doctor's coat lapels. "And I appreciated it."

"Because I've got a duty of care," the Doctor continued, her eyes flitting across her companion's face almost worriedly.

Clara smiled. "Which you take very seriously, I know."

"So can I stop now?" the Doctor asked, looking physically uncomfortable as she continued speaking.

Nodding with a little laugh, Clara patted her hands on the Time Lady's shoulders and stepped back. She opened the doors and stepped outside. The Doctor motioned towards the door, wordlessly offering for me to go before her. As we left the TARDIS, O'Donnell's voice came over the speakers.

"Attention, all crew. The Drum has switched to night mode early so grab provisions and make your way to the Faraday cage."

Clara looked to the Doctor and started chewing on her fingernails. "Shall we help them with provisions?"

"You can help with provisions. Diana and I will go back to the bridge."

"Alright. See you in a bit then."

She went off down one of the corridors to our right and the Doctor watched her for a few moments before starting down a different one. The walk to the bridge was perhaps one of the most painfully awkward few minutes of my entire life. I was still reeling from seeing the Doctor and Clara embrace so comfortably and freely, and from the realization that they were in a relationship. Was I was 'one of those' shippers who firmly believed they were in love? Absolutely, but actually seeing confirmation in a semi-realistic manner was more than a little confusing, dream or not.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **A reimagining of my previous stories in the 'Once Upon Another Time' series. I stumbled across some beautiful fan art of gender/racebent Doctors on tumblr and knew immediately that I had to write a story about it. Basically, the Doctor and the Master are women (most of the time) and very _un_ straight women at that, Time Lords are genderfluid, Clara's bi, the Doctor and Di are polyamorous, and Di is the most pansexual person you will ever meet. She might even rival Jack and River. ****There's a link to the fan art on my main account and you can have a looksie at each of the Doctors.**

 **Thanks for reading. Please leave a review to let me know what you liked, didn't like, what I could improve on, what you'd like to see in the future, and what episodes you want me to do most.**


	2. Under the Lake: Part 2

O'Donnell hardly noticed us when we returned to the bridge. She was still focused on trying to get the base back into day mode, with no luck. I sat down at the table and swiveled the seat from side to side. The Doctor stood by the computer station, looking at the security camera relays as she leaned her shoulder against the wall.

"Have you spotted either of the ghosts yet?"

O'Donnell shook her head. "No. And they've done nothing, caused no incidents yet. I'm still waiting for everyone to finish reporting in."

"Well, Clara should be in the mess hall by now to help with provisions."

"Bennett's in there, and Cass and Lunn are in the Faraday Cage."

The Doctor hummed and looked back at the camera relays. "That just leaves Pritchard."

Scooting her chair to a different station along the wall, O'Donnell began speaking into a microphone. "Pritchard, you are unaccounted for," she said, her voice echoing throughout the base's speakers. "Contact the bridge or get to the Faraday cage immediately." She waited, checking the relays for any sign of him. "Pritchard, contact the bridge or get to the Faraday cage!" Leaning back in her seat, O'Donnell adjusted her cap. "No answer."

"I don't see him," the Doctor said as she shoved her hands into her trouser pockets.

Bennett's voice came through the speaker system by the microphone, crackling slightly. "O'Donnell, it's okay. Pritchard's in here."

O'Donnell rolled her eyes and grabbed the mic. "Pritchard, you moron, grab your stuff. We're locking down early." Ending the transmission, O'Donnell rolled back to the computer station. "In case I can't get this back into day mode," she said to the Doctor.

Just a few seconds later, Bennett's voice came over the speaker again. "Man overboard. Man overboard! We need a rescue team in the water now!"

"Bennett, wait!" said Clara. "Look. It's Pritchard."

The Doctor shot past me like a rocket, practically sprinting through the doorway. I turned towards the relays and saw her running across a few different screens. She burst into the mess hall and skidded to a halt a few paces in front of Clara and Bennet. Cass and Lunn came into view then, standing just behind the Doctor. They were all looking in the direction of the camera, but I couldn't see what it was that had them so spooked. Then Pritchard's ghost stepped into view.

O'Donnell tapped rapidly at the control panel, muttering to herself. "Come on, come on." I glanced back at the relay and saw the group start to back away slowly as Pritchard's ghost lifted a chair into the air. "Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on."

The nighttime lights faded into daytime lights and Pritchard vanished, the chair clattering to the floor immediately. The computer announced day mode and I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding. O'Donnell groaned and fell forward, her elbows braced against the table as she let her face fall into her hands.

"You okay?" I asked.

She took a deep breath and smiled a little shakily at me. "These ghosts are gonna be the death of me," she grumbled.

Once the group returned and verified that no one else was hurt, the Doctor had O'Donnell play back the security footage to find out what happened to Pritchard. When he had left the ship earlier, he had apparently gone diving to look for the missing power cell the Doctor had mentioned. But when he returned to the base, the ghosts trapped him inside the airlock and drowned him. I had to look away when the chamber flooded with water.

"They're working out how to use the base against us," the Doctor said after O'Donnell ended the footage. "Altering the time settings so they can go about uninhibited, opening the airlocks. They're learning."

Clara nodded. "And now there's three of them."

Bennett cleaned his glasses on the corner of his shirt. "Cass, what do we do?"

She thought for a moment. "We abandon the base," Lunn said for her while she signed. "Topside can send down a whole team of marines or ghost-busters or whatever."

The Doctor shook her head. "Wait, wait-"

Cass rounded on her and signed angrily in her face. "I can't force you to leave, so you can stay and do the whole cabin in the woods thing and get killed or drowned if you want. But my first priority is to protect my crew."

Backing away with a single nod of acknowledgment, the Doctor walked over to the computer station to stand next to Clara. They whispered something to one another, but I couldn't be bothered to strain my ears to listen.

Cass continued signing, this time directed at O'Donnell. "O'Donnell, contact Topside. Tell them we're abandoning the base on my orders," Lunn said.

On the right side of the computer station was a telephone on a pedestal. She picked up the phone and pushed a button on the pedestal. "Topside, Topside, this is Lance Corporal Alice O'Donnell from Drum Control. Over."

Topside's reply played out over the speakers. "Drum Control, this is Topside. We have received your message. Submarine on its way. Over."

"Repeat, Topside. Over."

"We've received your request for a rescue sub. It's two minutes away. Over."

O'Donnell shook her head. "Topside, who did you speak to and when was this request made? Over."

"Drum Control, it was in Morse code and arrived maybe half an hour ago. Said it was urgent, comms were down, two crew members critically ill, full paramedic team requested. Over."

Snatching the phone out of O'Donnell's hand, the Doctor said, "Topside, this is the Doctor, UNIT security visa seven one zero apple zero zero. You may be familiar with my work. Call back the sub."

A brief pause. "Doctor, why would-"

"Call it back!" she snapped. "We have a hazardous and undefined contagion on board. This base is now under quarantine."

"What did you do that for?" Bennett asked after the Doctor replaced the phone.

"Well, none of us sent the message, did we? So that means that the ghosts sent it, which means they want that crew down here."

"Why would they do that?" Lunn said for Cass.

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, I don't know, but I'm pretty certain it's not so they can all form a boy band. Okay," she said. "We solve this on our own. The ghosts can only come out at night so they change the base's time settings. Why? What's different at night?"

"It's mainly atmospheric. The lights are dim, the noise from the engines is muffled," O'Donnell said.

The Time Lady shook her head. "No. Something else, something else."

Cass gasped. "The diagnostic sweep. When the systems are checked, that stops at night to save power."

"What systems specifically?"

"Life support, the locks. They're electromagnetic. They have to be secured in case of flooding, so throughout the day, they're checked, one by one, every few seconds," O'Donnell added.

"The answer is in there somewhere, I can smell it." The Doctor smiled. "O'Donnell, excellent work returning the base to day mode."

She blushed and smiled giddily. "Shut up. It was nothing. You- You really think so?"

"Mm. Now put it back into night mode."

Her smile dropped immediately. " _What?_ "

"We know nothing!" the Doctor exclaimed. "We don't know what they want. That's what's getting us killed. Well, _I_ won't run. Not any more. So, O'Donnell, kindly put the base back into night mode. We want to know what these ghosts are after? We ask them. We're going to do the impossible. We're going to capture a ghost."

* * *

The speakers sounded again with computer's greeting: "Good evening. Entering night mode."

Cass and I stood behind O'Donnell at the computer station, anxiously watching the relays. Bennett nervously stepped into the mess hall and I could see him visibly shrink away as he saw the three ghosts. He waved at them and then scrambled down the adjoining corridor, terror written plainly across his face.

"Bennett's got them moving and Clara's in position," O'Donnell said.

The Doctor was at the opposite end of the room by the door, focused on the base map. "Clara, Bennett is going to run across the top of the T-junction to your right in about ten seconds. Draw the ghosts towards you. Turn right, and then take second left."

On the relays, I could see Bennett as he ran out of view of one camera and into view of another with the ghosts just behind him. Clara jumped out from her hiding spot as Bennett ran past, shouting and waving at the ghosts to get their attention. They turned towards her and then advanced as she spun around and started running.

The Doctor had come up behind me while Clara did her part, watching the cameras. "Lunn, they're coming your way," she said as she went back to the map. "Clara's going to duck down to her left. You've got to keep the ghosts going on the same route they're on now. Then after about fifty yards on your left, there is a flood door. O'Donnell will close the door once you're through."

She paused, seemingly waiting for Lunn's response. She looked back at the cameras and put a hand to her headset. "Lunn, don't let them see where you go."

All four of us watched with baited breath as Lunn distracted the ghosts, hoping divert them so Clara could get to safety. But instead of all three ghosts advancing on Lunn, only one of them did while the other two went after Clara.

"They've separated," O'Donnell said worriedly. "Moran and the mole guy are going after Clara."

"Clara, look out. Two ghosts are still on your case. Right behind you!" O'Donnell said into her own headset.

The Doctor went back to the map and ran her finger along the corridors. "Clara, there's a flood door at the end of the corridor, around the corner to your right. We'll close it from here." She looked back at the cameras. "Listen to me. You've got to get through that door before Moran and the other ghost sees you."

Once Clara had gotten past the flood door, the Doctor gave O'Donnell the signal and the door was shut. The Doctor confirmed that she was safe before checking in on Lunn. Then, at her order, O'Donnell shut the second flood door and Lunn was out of range of the camera.

Cass and I couldn't hear anything that the others were saying since we didn't have headsets, but we could tell something was wrong when the Doctor's face grew more serious than usual. Cass touched my arm and asked what was going on, looking worriedly between me, the Doctor, and the relays.

"Doctor? What's wrong?" I said. "What happened?"

"It saw him."

The relay focused on Lunn showed Pritchard's ghost stepping through the flood door and into the chamber.

"We don't have a camera in there," O'Donnell said, shooting the Doctor a worried expression.

Cass, who had been reading everyone's lips to understand what was happening, shot towards the door only to have the Doctor block her. Cass groaned in frustration and paced back to the computer station, chewing nervously on her thumbnail as she watched the relay.

"Lunn, can you hear me?" the Doctor said into the headset. "Can you hear me? Lunn, what's happening?" She repeated herself over and over, clutching the headset as she stared at the relay in hopes of seeing something. Pritchard's ghost exited the chamber, melting through the door and then striding down the corridor. "Lunn? _Lunn?_ Can you hear me?"

Both O'Donnell and the Doctor let out a breath a moment later, and the Doctor ran a hand through her hair. O'Donnell got up and smiled reassuringly at Cass, placing her hands on her shoulders. "Cass, he's alive," she said.

"What's wrong with you?" the Doctor said, making me turn at look at her incredulously. "Why didn't it hurt you? Never mind, we'll worry about that later. Bennett, you're on again. Bennett, where are you?"

We all let out a collective sigh when we spotted Bennett on the relay, caught in his hiding place with all three ghosts just around the corner.

The Doctor leaned against the back of O'Donnell's empty chair. "Bennett, can you hear me? There are two ghosts just around the corner from you." She frowned. "The Faraday cage is across the intersection and down the corridor to your right. This last bit is down to you."

On screen, Bennett dodged across the intersection and down another corridor. The ghosts spotted him and followed, easily catching up to him despite the fact that he was running at full speed. He ran down two more corridors, rounding a corner and finding himself at the Faraday cage just as planned. The cage door was opened and stepping into the doorway, a hologram of Clara appeared. The ghosts seemed to move even faster and strode into the cage, walking directly through the hologram.

The Doctor appeared on the relay and I looked over my shoulder, only realizing then that she had left. Back on the relay, the door quickly slammed shut behind the ghosts and as the Doctor ran up to the cage whilst fidgeting with her sonic sunglasses. The hologram disappeared with a wave of static. A cacophony of footsteps sounded by the door, and Cass, O'Donnell, and I turned to see the others running through the doorway.

Cass immediately pulled Lunn into a hug, while Bennett, who very clearly wanted to hug O'Donnell, just waved a little awkwardly at the other woman and let her playfully punch him in the arm. "Oh, I'm fine, by the way," Clara said, leaning against the table as she caught her breath. "Just in case any of you were worried."

"Sonic glasses Wi-Fi locked in," said O'Donnell. "On screen B2."

Clara and I turned. Cass was standing next to O'Donnell, staring at the relay that showed the Faraday cage. She signed something and shook her head. "She says she can't see them properly," Lunn said. "The glass is too thick and they're too far away."

The Doctor apparently said something because O'Donnell and Clara began protesting. "What?"

"Doctor, you can't go in there, they will kill you!" Clara practically shouted.

I grabbed Clara by the hand. "What did she say? What's going on?"

Clara shook her head in frustration. "She wants to go into the cage since Cass can't see them well enough. But it's too dangerous-" She paused, seemingly to listen to the Doctor. "O'Donnell, unlock the door."

"You're letting her in?" I asked.

"It's the only way."

Back on the screen, I could see the Doctor standing just inside the cage. The tall, dark skinned ghost, Moran's ghost, stepped forward and thrust a hand inside the Doctor's chest. She flinched and started to fall backwards until she suddenly stood upright again and began speaking. I still couldn't hear what she was saying, so I looked to Clara and asked what was happening.

She adjusted the headset and squinted at the relay. "I don't think she's hurt. She was just being melodramatic, as usual."

Lunn began speaking for Cass again. "She says they're saying the same thing- the same phrase over and over. They're saying: the dark, the score- no, the sword, the… for sale? No, the forsaken! The temple. Yes, she's sure. The dark, the sword, the forsaken, the temple." Lunn looked up at the screen, where the Doctor was pulling a confused expression. "Just that. Over and over."

A few moments later, Bennett started rushing around the room. I shot Clara a look and she sighed, pulling the headset off and then running a hand over her face. "The Doctor said she needed maps for… something."

"Why?"

"Apparently she know what the ghosts are saying, why they're saying it."

"And why's that?"

"Well, she's keeping us in suspense."

"As usual," I guessed, managing a smile and a genuine laugh.

Clara nodded, but her smile faltered for a second and her eyes flickered to mine. "Aren't you supposed to know what's going to happen?" she wondered. "Or at least have an idea, even though things are different?"

Her question caught me off guard. "Am I?" When she nodded, I shrugged and leaned back against the edge of the table. "Well that's dream logic for you."

"Don't you remember what's going to happen?"

I furrowed my brows, trying to recall details of the episode and what was supposed to happen next, and although I remembered, there was a fogginess in my brain that made it difficult to sort through each thought. "I, um, I remember some of it," I told her, adjusting my glasses so they were perfectly balanced on the bridge of my nose. "But it's hard to process. My head feels kinda foggy."

"Are you okay? Does your head hurt?" she asked.

"No, I'm- I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm a total baby about pain, Clara. If my head was hurting, you'd know," I said.

She hummed thoughtfully and smiled, but the worry didn't leave her eyes. "Okay, well, just take it easy. Why don't you sit down? Do you want some water?"

"Clara, I'm fine. You don't have to mother me."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I just- I worry about you, okay? The Doctor, too, she just isn't very good at expressing her feelings. That and she's possibly more stubborn than I am."

"That's saying something," I teased, daring to nudge her arm with my elbow.

"Shut up," she laughed. "Just for that, I'm going to mother you for the rest of the day."

The Doctor returned soon after, digging through her coat pockets frantically. Bennett had laid out some of the physical maps on the table and started up a screen in the center with a few more maps displayed there. The Doctor started pulling things out of her pockets; first a handkerchief and a yoyo, then an apple, a ping pong ball, a black cell phone, a handful of hair ties, a knobby stress ball, a guitar pick, and a spoon. She poured over the maps, fingers tracing marked lines and paths of solar systems and star charts, and I couldn't help but notice the gold ring on her left hand. Clara moved to sit down on the opposite end of the table, out of the Doctor's way, and I followed. We stayed sitting for a few minutes, Clara and I absently fiddling with whatever was within our reach, while the others chatted softly with each other. The Doctor remained focused on the maps, occasionally muttering to herself, until she cried out.

Clara stood up. "Doctor?"

"They're coordinates."

"What?"

"The words. They're coordinates."

"How can they be coordinates?" Bennett asked.

"The dark? Space. I figured that one out in a snap. So, whoever's following the coordinates knows they're going to another planet. The sword?" She picked up the apple and handed it to Bennett, then moved him so he was standing near the computer station. Then she moved O'Donnell in front of him, handing her the knobby stress ball. She waved Clara over and handed her the ping pong ball, then moved her in front of the others. She picked up the yoyo and looked over at me. "Diana, come here. Hold this."

She directed me in front of Clara and pushed the yoyo into my hand, then had all four of us hold our arms at a specific angle so the objects formed a diagonal line.

"Orion's sword. The sword, the three stars - although one isn't actually a star but the Orion Nebula - hanging down from Orion's belt. But if viewed from back here," the Doctor said, hurrying behind us to the computer station, "the Earth, which is Diana in this case, becomes the fourth bit of the sword. So, narrowed it down to a planet now. Getting closer."

She returned and took the items back, placing them haphazardly on the table. Turning around, she leaned back against the table to watch us. "The forsaken. The forsaken or abandoned or empty town. See? It's a location, beaming out to someone or something across the universe, over and over. And every time they kill one of us-"

"It strengthens the signal!" Clara realized. "Another ghost, another transmitter."

"Which is why they sent for that rescue sub," O'Donnell added.

The Doctor nodded. "Get more people down here, kill them, make even more ghosts to beam out the coordinates."

"But why are they beaming out the coordinates?" Cass signed. "Is it a distress call?"

"It could be. Or a warning. Might even be a call to arms. It could mean, 'Come here, they're vulnerable, help yourself-.' Wait a minute," the Time Lady said. "Wait a min-u-et. Do you know what this means? It means that they're not a natural phenomenon. It means that someone is deliberately getting people killed, hijacking their souls and turning them into transmitters."

O'Donnell crossed her arms over her chest. "But what do the coordinates lead to, though? To us? To the ghosts? What?"

The Doctor snapped her fingers and pointed at her. "Ah! What the coordinates are for. That is part of the answer to the other question you're all thinking." She glanced expectantly at each of us, a hopeful and excited look on her face. But when none of us said anything or offered an answer, her smile dropped. "Really? Come on. None of you? Surely just being around me makes you cleverer by osmosis? What. Is. The other. Question?"

"The temple," Lunn said for Cass. "The fourth part of the directions. What's the temple?"

" _Finally_ ," the Doctor groaned. "It's like pulling teeth. This is the flooded military town," she said, pointing to one of the maps. "Shops, houses, town square, and this."

Clara leaned over to look at it. "A church?"

"Whatever the coordinates are for, it's in that church. Find that and you're a hop, skip and a jump to stopping them."

"Wait, you're not actually suggesting that? But we're safe now," Bennett snapped. "The ghosts are in the cage. We can get out of here."

The Doctor set her jaw. "No one has to stay. In fact, I would prefer it if you went. You'll all get in the way and ask ridiculous questions. But, you know, you have chosen to protect and serve," she said, gesturing to Cass, Lunn, and O'Donnell. She turned to Bennett. "You have given yourself to science and the pursuit of knowledge. None of you have chosen anonymous or selfish lives. You go and a part of you will always wonder, 'What would have happened if I'd stayed? How could I have helped? What would I have learned?' I want you to go. But you should know what it is that you're leaving."

The others all looked at each other. They were all silent until Cass began signing with a resigned expression. Lunn raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded, gesturing for him to translate for her. "Cass says we should go, but everything that happens here is her responsibility now, so she's going to stay. So," he said, exhaling heavily, "I guess I should too."

"Well, count me in," O'Donnell chimed. "Who wants to live forever anyway?"

"Sorry. Um, have you gone insane? We can go home." He looked at O'Donnell and she shrugged and giggled. His face softened and the corners of his lips turned up. "They're ghosts, though. How can they be ghosts? Well, at least if I die, you know I really will come back and haunt you all."

Since the ghosts had already killed Pritchard after he went diving for the power cell, sending anyone else out to dive for the church was out of the question. Bennett suggested using one of the drone submarines the base had so that no one would be in danger. And transporting anything they might find or need back to the base would be easy since the drone was capable of hauling tons of weight.

But while the crew began planning to send the sub out, Clara pulled the Doctor outside and began speaking to her. I stayed by the table, unable to help anyone with the sub and too awkward to join the pair that had slipped away since it was obviously a private conversation. I grabbed the yoyo off the table and fiddled with the loose end of the string, glancing occasionally at the Doctor and Clara through the window. Whether she noticed me or not, I could very obviously see the Doctor looking at me every now and then. I tried to strain my ears and hear them, but Clara kept her voice low and the others were talking loud enough that it was of no use.

I replaced the yoyo and noticed that the Doctor had left her sonic sunglasses on the table. Making sure the Doctor wasn't looking my way, I slipped my glasses off and replaced them with the sonic ones. At first my vision was slightly fuzzy, as it usually was when I didn't wear my glasses, but then the lenses went static and my vision turned crystal clear. Everything was a shade darker since they were still sunglasses, but otherwise they seemed perfectly normal. That is, until I pressed my finger against the bridge to push them up after they slid slightly. The glasses buzzed and the light fixture above the Doctor and Clara sparked, then fizzled out.

Immediately, the Doctor's eyes fixated on me through the window and I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment. She hurried back inside and I yanked the shades off so quickly that they caught on the piercing at the top of my ear, making me wince. The Doctor took them out of my hands before I could put them back on the table.

"I'm sorry-"

"What did you do?" she asked. Her tone was low and stern, but not angry.

"I-I just pushed them back up because they fell. I'm sorry, I was just curious."

She slipped them on and went back outside, looking up at the fixture while she adjusted the glasses. Clara put a hand on my arm, but I pulled away and walked to the other side of the table, sitting down at the chair farthest away from everyone else. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't even look anyone in the eyes. Unfortunately, I realized only after I sat down that my glasses were still on the opposite end of the table and I'd have to walk back around to get them.

I crossed my arms over my chest and spun the chair around so my back was turned to the others. My cheeks felt like they were on fire and I pressed my fingers to my skin in the hopes of cooling off.

"Here." A dark hand came into view in the corner of my eye, my glasses held delicately in the Doctor's long, thin fingers. I took them without looking any higher and slipped them on. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. I, er, I know how much you hate it."

" 's fine," I mumbled.

"How's your head?"

"My head?" I briefly glanced over my shoulder.

"Clara said you were having trouble remembering things?"

"No, I can remember things fine. It's just understanding them is hard." I looked down at the Doctor's shoes. "Which, I realize now, isn't a good sign."

"It's probably just a side effect. You should be fine soon."

"A side effect of what?"

The Doctor scratched her chin. "Well-" A call from Bennett made her stop. He explained that O'Donnell had released the sub and was on her way back, so they would start the search for the church when she returned. The Doctor looked back at me, visibly agitated, and started fiddling with her ring. "I don't have the time to properly tell you what's going on and this certainly isn't the right time to do it. But I'll explain everything later, I promise."

"What do you mean? What are you even talking about?"

"I'm just sorry that this didn't happen another way, an easier way."

I narrowed my eyes. "Doctor, what-? I don't understand."

She bowed her head and traced a finger over the ring. "I know. And I'm sorry."

"Doctor," O'Donnell called as she entered the room, "we're ready when you are."

The Doctor looked seriously at me. "Just… Just stay close to me and Clara, alright?"

"Why- Doctor, wait." I reached out to grab the Time Lady by her sleeve, but she was already dodging the table and halfway to the computer station. Groaning in frustration, I trailed after her.

"Hey," Clara said, catching me by the arm as we passed, "you okay? She didn't say anything mean to you, did she?"

"No, she's just being incredibly cryptic and _weird_. Which I really shouldn't be surprised by," I grumbled.

" _Shh_ ," the Doctor hissed, waving at us half heartedly as she looked up at the camera relays.

Bennett stood to the side of the computer station with what looked like a virtual reality headset strapped around his head. He had both of his arms extended in front of him with tiny sensors strapped to his fingers, the wires all connecting to the headset. "Okay, the sub is approaching the town square," he said. "Which way is the church?"

O'Donnell checked the clipboard she was holding where she had scribbled something. "Northwest, one hundred and fifty yards. That's it. Starboard two degrees."

Clara leaned up against O'Donnell's chair. "What are we looking for, exactly?"

The Doctor squinted at the relays. "Something that has the power to raise the dead and turn them into transmitters. I expect we'll know it when we see it."

"Wait!" Bennett exclaimed. "I think I've found the church."

The Doctor nodded. "That's it, keep going." It was difficult to see much of anything through the murky water and the animals swimming by, but something bright and white was caught in the sub's lights. "Wait. What's that? Move closer."

* * *

"It's the suspended-animation chamber from the spaceship," the Doctor said as she circled the object, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her.

Clara started fiddling with her thumb ring. _Does everyone just fiddle with their rings then, or am I missing something?_ I wondered. "So the pilot could be in there?"

"There's _something_ inside there. But it's deadlock sealed. I can't open it." The Doctor frowned as she ran a hand over the surface. "It should be the pilot, it should be. So why do I think it isn't? More questions. Everything I solve, just more questions. I have to go back to the beginning. We arrive, we see the ghosts. They don't kill us. They lead us here, they show us the spaceship. Then they try to kill us." She looked back at the ship, looming emptily behind us. She hurried up the steps to stare at the words carved into the wall. "Not translated by the TARDIS. Why?" Cleaning her sonic shades on her handkerchief, the Doctor slipped them on and leaned in closer to the wall. "Lunn, translate for me," she said after returning to the group. "Whenever I step outside, you are the smartest person in the room. So tell me: what's weird about this? I know that it's all bonkers, but when you think about it, one thing keeps snagging in your mind. What is it?"

"The markings on the inside of the spaceship," Lunn translated, clearly finding her comment more than a bit weird.

"The markings on the inside of the spaceship! Yes! Why?"

Cass frowned. "I don't think they're just words."

"They're not. They're magnets."

"Magnets?" Bennett echoed.

"Well, a localized and manufactured electromagnetic field, to be precise." _Well that means absolutely nothing to me_ , I thought. "The dark. The sword. The forsaken. The temple. When we heard the coordinates for the first time, did anyone expect them not to be that? No? Exactly. Me neither. It's like we already knew, somehow. Like the words were already in us."

As the Doctor explained her reasoning, I could feel the fog start to clear. Everything she said was making sense and the instant she said it, I felt the memories click inside my head, but I couldn't catch up to her. Every detail, every memory of what she would say or what was about to happen was just out of reach.

"Everything we see or experience shapes us in some way. But these words actually rewrite the synaptic connections in your brain. They literally change the way you are wired. Clara, why don't I have a radio in the TARDIS?"

"You took it apart and used the pieces to make a clockwork squirrel."

The Doctor rolled her eyes. "Yes, _and_ because whatever song I heard first thing in the morning, I was stuck with. Two weeks of Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre. I was begging for the brush of Death's merciful hand. But don't you see? These words are an earworm. A song you can't stop humming, even after you die."

Clara nodded. "Okay. So, the spaceship lands here. The pilot leaves the writing on the wall so whoever sees it, when they die, they become a beacon of the coordinates, while he slash she slash they slash it snoozes in the suspended-animation chamber-"

"Waiting for his slash her slash theirs slash its mates to pick the message up," the Doctor interjected. "My God."

Nearly scaring me to death, a loud alarm began blaring throughout the base, loud enough that I almost had to cover my ears. "Attention, all crew," the computer said over the speakers. "Evacuate base immediately. Emergency protocols have been initiated. This safety message was brought to you by Vector Petroleum. Fuel for our futures."

O'Donnell sprinted across the room where a large screen was propped against the wall. Flashing in big, red letters were the words 'FLOODING INITIATED. REACTOR MALFUNCTION. EMERGENCY COOLING.' "Oh, no!" she cried. "The ghosts tampering with the day-night settings caused a computer malfunction. I-Its first priority is to keep the reactor cool, so it's opening the hull doors and it's flooding the base."

Cass began signing rapidly. "Cass says, close the internal flood doors. That'll contain the water in the central corridor," Lunn said.

"Where's the TARDIS?" Clara asked.

O'Donnell pointed somewhere on the base map after following Cass' orders. "On the other side."

"We need to get there," the Doctor said. "It's our only way out."

"Okay, we've got thirty seconds before the flood doors close."

The Doctor grabbed my hand and bolted before I could even process where we were headed. O'Donnell led us through the corridors with Bennett, the Doctor, and myself right behind her and Clara, Cass, and Lunn behind us. I could hear Clara shouting, but I didn't bother listening. All I cared about was getting to safety and not falling behind and drowning.

As we turned a corner and dashed across a corridor, I felt water splashing on my legs. My feet stuttered and I stumbled for a moment. Something pushed me from behind and I fell forward, nearly tripping. Multiple voices were shouting, some of them saying my name, and I was tugged forward into a dry corridor by O'Donnell.

"Doctor!" Clara yelled.

Across the flooding corridor, the flood door had shut and trapped Clara, Cass, and Lunn behind it. The Doctor looked back towards me as our flood door began to shut. She dove forward, under the door and landed hard on her front.

"Doctor!" I scrambled forward to help her up.

She got to her feet and pressed her hands against the door, gazing through the glass window at Clara. Beside the door was another screen and she pressed a few buttons, activating an intercom to Clara's side. "I'll get you and the others out. Sit tight. I'll come back for you," she said breathlessly.

I looked over the Doctor's shoulder to see Clara peking through her own window, the water level rising quickly. "Just come over here in the TARDIS now."

The Doctor shook her head. "The TARDIS won't go there. It won't go near the ghosts."

"You can't just leave us!"

"I'm not! Clara, listen to me. I'm going back in time to when this spaceship landed. If I can understand why this is happening, I can stop them killing anyone else. I-I can save you. You trust me, don't you, Clara?"

The water stretched above the windows now, but I could still see a wavy, unclear vision of her and the others. She nodded and the Doctor sighed heavily. She bowed her head and stepped back, letting her hand fall. Then, swallowing and and setting her jaw, the Doctor turned and marched down the corridor.

"Wait, you're going to go back in time?" Bennett said as we hurried to keep up with the Time Lady. "How do you do that?"

"Extremely well."

The TARDIS hummed as we stepped inside a minute later. We filed into the console room one by one and the moment my hands touched the console, I felt the same warm, soothing sensation as before. My rapidly beating heart calmed and I took a deep breath. The Doctor typed something into a keyboard on the opposite end of the console and then flipped a switch.

"It's- It's-"

"Yes, I know. We don't have time for that right now," the Doctor said flippantly. She pointed to the lower level. "Go through that doorway, to your left, and open the door at the end. Grab coats, scarves, hats, whatever you need. It'll be cold where we're going."

Bennet and O'Donnell gaped at the TARDIS for a moment before O'Donnell took him by the hand and excitedly guided him into the hallway. The Doctor glanced at me, eyebrows raised. "You should change into something warmer," she suggested.

"Clara's going to be okay," I blurted.

Her remarkably pale eyes darted back to mine. "Do you know that?"

"I remember it."

"Can you remember things easier now?"

"I don't know. Not really, but I _know_ she'll be okay. I can… feel it."

The Doctor managed to smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. She focused on the console again and continued typing. "Go change, Diana. I can't have you freezing to death in your wet clothes."

As I started down the steps, I turned to see the Doctor bent over the console with her face in her hands. She sighed, probably for the hundredth time that day, and then straightened to her full height. The TARDIS hummed again and the lights in the console room dimmed slightly. The Doctor rested a hand on the console. "I know, old girl. I know."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I'd love to know what you guys think of this episode. I had a lot of fun writing it, especially since Di's starting to feel more comfortable and more interactive. Let me know if I missed any typos, or if you liked a specific part!**


	3. Before the Flood

**A/N: This chapter isn't very good, but I'll be editing it so it flows better sometime soon!**

* * *

"Where's Bennett?" the Doctor asked, her hands stuffed into her trouser pockets as O'Donnell and I exited the TARDIS. "We need to get going."

O'Donnell rolled her eyes. "Oh, he's still throwing up. One small step for man, one giant _blegh_ ," she said, adding a gagging sound for effect.

The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, time travel does that sometimes."

"Somehow I doubt that Rose or Martha or Amy lost their breakfast on their first trip. What about you, Diana?"

I froze. "Huh?"

"You lose your breakfast the first time you had a go in the TARDIS?"

I looked over my shoulder at the ship and smiled, burying my face in the scarf I'd wrapped around my neck. "No. It was nice."

O'Donnell nodded. "There, you see?"

"You seem to know an awful lot about me," the Doctor noted.

"I used to be in military intelligence. I was demoted for dangling a colleague out of a window."

The Doctor raised her eyebrows and I saw the smallest hint of her breath hang in the air. "In anger?" she asked.

"Is there another way to dangle someone out a window?" O'Donnell scoffed. The Doctor smiled. "What year are we in?"

Sucking on her index finger, the Doctor held it in the air and concentrated for a moment. "Mm, 1980," she said.

"So pre Harold Saxon, pre the Minister of War, pre the moon exploding and a big bat coming out."

"The Minister of War?" the Doctor said as I asked, "Big bat?"

O'Donnell looked like she was about to explain, so the Doctor raised a finger to silence her. "No, never mind. I expect I'll find out soon enough."

Bennett stepped out of the TARDIS then, trying very hard _not_ to look like he had just vomited for several minutes. He awkwardly slipped his glasses on. "Sorry about that. Had a prawn sandwich. Might have been off."

"Uh huh. Well, no worries." The Doctor raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Shall we go?"

"Just one sec," O'Donnell said, suddenly hopping onto one foot. "I've just got something in my boot."

The Doctor extended her elbow to me. "Come on, then." I stared wide-eyed at her and something seemed to click in her mind because she quickly looked away. "Ah, sorry, er-"

"It's fine." She glanced back at me and I smiled, slowly wrapping my arm around hers. "Thank you."

We walked across the platform the TARDIS had landed on, moving from concrete to soil and grass in a few steps. Dozens of brick buildings roofed with metal surrounded us, almost every single wall covered with posters in Russian writing. The town was situated in a valley and the mountains that loomed over us on either side were tall and breathtakingly beautiful.

Bennett and O'Donnell came up the path after us, their boots crunching on the ground. "Are we in Russia?" I asked.

"No, we're still in Scotland."

"Still?"

"This is the town before it flooded, where the base was built," the Time Lady explained. "The TARDIS has brought us to when the spaceship first touched down. But here and now, it's the height of the Cold War. The military were being trained for offensives on Soviet soil."

"Is that the church?" O'Donnell asked. She pointed at the building in front of us and we could just see a small trio of spires on the opposite end, Orthodox crosses set at the tip of each one.

The Doctor huffed and marched around the building with myself in tow. I had stubbornly refused to change my shoes, only drying my feet off before changing into a dry skirt, and was already starting to regret leaving my toes bare and exposed to the cool weather. But I was also stubborn enough not to admit that I'd made a mistake, so I stumbled alongside the Doctor somewhat miserably and very silently.

As we rounded the church, the Doctor slowed to a halt. The large, pristinely white ship that was back in the base was standing right in front of the church. The Doctor looked down at me and I blinked, burrowing my face further into my scarf as I zipped up my borrowed jacket.

I released the Doctor's arm to go up the stairs after and immediately missed her warmth, crossing my arms to try and regain some of it. The large, white rectangular object Bennett had discovered with his submarine was onboard and behind it, on the large pedestal, appeared to be a body wrapped in cloth.

"Is that the pilot?" O'Donnell asked. "My God, look at size of it."

"No, that's the body."

"What do you mean, the body?"

The Doctor hummed lowly. "This isn't just any spaceship. It's a hearse."

A shiver ran down my spine and I instinctively huddled closer to the Doctor. She glanced back at me when my hands knocked against her back and she smiled briefly, but behind that smile was a worried expression and a furrowed brow.

"The suspended animation chamber's still here and the power cells for the engine," Bennett said.

"And there are no markings on the wall."

The Doctor nodded. "Yet," she added softly. Her eyes flitted to me again and her breath clouded. "You should have worn something warmer."

"I'm fine," I insisted.

She raised an eyebrow and shot me a skeptical look. "You're practically shivering," she noted. "You should have worn trousers instead."

"I'm fine. I like the cold."

"Doctor?" O'Donnell had circled the pedestal so she could grab the Time Lady by the sleeve. "Look."

I followed the line of her arm to the church, where a man in a suit and top hat was running towards the ship waving a handkerchief. "Hello, hello! Greetings!" he called.

The Doctor started down the steps, with Bennett, O'Donnell and myself just behind her. "It's him," O'Donnell breathed. "That's the ghost from the Drum."

The man wasn't a man at all, but an alien; the Whoville alien that had chased myself, Clara, and the Doctor across the base. The alien leaned forward, his nose almost touching the Doctor's, and then suddenly turned to look at me. "Remarkable," he murmured as he squinted at me. He turned to Bennett and O'Donnell with an astonished expression. "Oh, and humans too!" Whipping out a few business cards from his jacket, the alien handed one to each of us. "Albar Prentis, Funeral Director."

The card was white with simple, neat black lettering that read: _Albar Prentis, Universal Funeral Director. May the remorse be with you._ The Doctor tossed hers aside and stuffed her hands in her coat pockets.

"You're from Tivoli, aren't you?" Bennett said.

Albar laughed and nodded. "The most invaded planet in the galaxy! Our capital city has a sign saying, 'If you occupied us, you'd be home by now.' "

"Yes, I've had dealings with your lot before," said the Doctor. "I can't say I'm a fan."

"No, we do tend to antagonize!"

The Doctor narrowed her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

Albas exclaimed and hurried inside the ship, placing a hand on the pedestal. "This is the Fisher King. He and his armies invaded Tivoli and enslaved us for ten glorious years!" The Doctor and I shared an incredulous expression. "Until we were liberated by the Arcateenians. But, thank the Gods, soon we'd irritated them so much, they enslaved us, too!" the alien said with another incredibly annoying laugh.

"My first proper alien and he's an idiot," Bennett mumbled, rubbing his temples.

"And now, in accordance with Arcateenian custom, I've come to bury him on a barren, savage outpost."

O'Donnell sniffled. "You mean the town?" she asked.

The Doctor half scoffed, half chuckled. "He means the planet."

Albar hurried down the steps again. "Although, at the risk of starting a bidding war, _you_ could enslave me." He looked to the Doctor and grinned, leaning towards her again so their faces were nearly touching. "In the ship I have directions to my planet and a selection of items that you can… _oppress_ me with."

I wrinkled my nose. "Gross."

The Doctor stepped back a little. "Listen, we've come from the future. You're about to send some sort of signal. How do you do it? Is it a special pen?"

"What are you talking about?" the alien wondered.

"The technology you use. The thing that wrenches the soul out of the body and makes it repeat your coordinates for eternity. Give it to me now. I'm going to take the batteries out."

"We don't have anything like that," Albar laughed. "Even this belongs to the glorious Arcateenians."

The Doctor furrowed her brows. "So who sends the message?" She looked at the body inside the ship, then down at me and pursed her lips. "Back to the TARDIS. I need to talk to Clara."

* * *

The Doctor dialed a number into the phone attached to the console and, a few rings later, Clara's face showed up on the scanner. "Doctor? Doctor, are you alright?" she said.

"Yeah, fine," the Time Lady said dismissively. "So listen, the spaceship? It's a hearse." The Doctor paused when she noticed Clara's eyes watering. She leaned closer to the screen. "Clara, what's wrong?"

She swallowed her tears. "Another ghost has appeared."

"What? Who? Has someone died?"

Clara glanced off-screen, presumably at the ghost, and exhaled heavily. "Doctor, are the others there? Can they hear me?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Can I just talk to you?"

The Doctor nodded and scrambled to grab the phone receiver. "Clara, what's going on?" She leaned against the console, the fingers of her free hand fidgeting with the buttons on her jacket. Suddenly, her hand froze and her sharp intake of breath made me look up. Her face had gone very pale and her eyes were shut. "You're sure?"

I had taken a seat at one of the plain black chairs situated along the edge of the console platform, but I stood up when the Doctor made a noise that wasn't quite a cough. "Doctor? Are you okay?"

Her eyes flew open and locked onto me. She stared unblinkingly at me for several impossibly long seconds before flashing me the most painful smile I had ever seen. "I'm fine," she said softly. Then she turned her back to me and grabbed onto the edge of the console, the phone pressed firmly to her ear. "This is the future. It's already happened for you. Even the tiniest change- the ramifications could be catastrophic. It could spread carnage and chaos across the universe like ripples on a pond-… Clara, I have many rules that I must follow to ensure the safety of the universe. But if you think I'm just going to let this happen, then you don't know me at all."

Facing the console head-on, the Doctor replaced the receiver and Clara's face showed up on the scanner again. "So, this ghost. You've got a better view than me. How does it look? Any signs of trauma, any scars? Any clues as to how it dies?"

O'Donnell and Bennett, who had been sitting on the stairs on the opposite end of the room, stood in front of the scanner after the Doctor waved them over. Clara took a seat in one of the yellow plastic and metal chairs in the mess hall. "No, nothing. It's the same as all the other ghosts with the weird black eyes. I mean, i-it's wearing different clothes, but that seems to be the only difference."

"Let me see."

"But-"

The Doctor grabbed the scanner and brought it around to the other side of the console so no one else could see it. "Show me." She scratched her chin with a thoughtful expression. "I assume it's just saying the same thing as the others."

"No. It's saying a list of names," I heard Clara say. "Our names, mainly. Moran, Pritchard, Prentis, O'Donnell, Diana, Clara, Doctor, Bennett, Cass. Who's Prentis?"

"The mole-faced chap." The sound of something clattering startled me and the Doctor's face grew worried. "What's the matter? Clara, what's happening?"

"She's moved inside! She's inside here now, in the mess hall!"

The Doctor pursed her lips. "What is she doing?" she asked.

"Uh, well… nothing. She's just standing there."

The Doctor glanced briefly at me over the scanner. "She's not trying to kill you? Why is she not trying to kill you?"

"No. No, wait, she's moving, going towards the control panel," Clara said slowly. There was silence for a few moments and then I heard Clara gasp. "She's opened the Faraday cage. She's let the other ghosts out. Doctor-"

"I need to talk to her. Now."

"Didn't you hear me? She opened the Faraday cage! The other ghosts are outside. Shouldn't we be hiding?"

"In a minute. I need to talk to the ghost."

"Doctor, does that really matter right now?" O'Donnell asked. "They need to be somewhere safe so the ghosts don't kill them!"

"And don't you think we should see what's going on, as well?" Bennett added. "Who's the ghost? You said 'she', so it can't be me or Lunn."

"Well it's not you, so it's none of your concern," the Doctor snapped. "Now all of you be quiet so I can talk to this ghost."

"We have a right to know!" O'Donnell countered, her hands crossed over her chest and a stubborn frown on her face. "At the very least, Diana and I deserve to know since it could be either of our lives in danger."

The Doctor looked seriously at her, obviously unwilling to tell us who the ghost was but also aware that both Bennett and O'Donnell were right. She sighed and glanced down at the console for a moment. Then she lifted her gaze again and took a deep breath. "It's me," she said. "The ghost is me."

O'Donnell's mouth fell open. "What?"

The Doctor's eyes flitted to me and something stirred in the pit of my stomach, an uneasy feeling that somehow made me feel as if she wasn't telling the truth. I frowned, searching the Doctor's face for any sign that I was just being paranoid.

"I have to die."

"Doctor?" Clara called, snapping the Time Lady out of her trance. "The ghost stopped talking. Oh. No, wait, she's started again."

Lunn's voice came through the speakers. "Her message has changed. She's saying something different. She's saying-…"

"What?" Clara urged.

The Doctor waved her arms impatiently. "What?"

"She's saying, 'the chamber will open tonight.' "

Something in the Doctor's expression changed and she leaned closer to the scanner. "Clara, now that the ghosts are out, go to the Faraday cage. They won't be able to get you in there." She paused and lightly smacked herself in the forehead. "Oh, there's a problem."

"Oh, really? Problem? What problem?" Clara demanded. "Because everything else is going so smoothly!"

"The phone signal won't be able to get through. What you'll have to do, Clara, is put the phone outside and you can watch it through the little round porthole. And when you see it ringing, if it's safe to do so, go out and answer it."

"Okay, how long are you going to-"

"Clara, listen to me. Don't let that phone out of your sight. I need to be able to reach you, I need to know everything my ghost does. Do you understand? I'll come back for you," she said, her voice suddenly low and gentle. "I swear."

The call ended and the Doctor pushed the screen to the side. She sighed, closing her eyes for a few moments as she seemed to regain her composure. Then she darted around the console and started for the doors. "Come on." But she stopped just short of the doors and whirled around. "Oh, wait a minute. Not you two," she said, gesturing to O'Donnell and I.

"What, why?" I asked.

"Someone needs to stay here and mind the shop. What if Clara calls?"

O'Donnell scoffed. "The last bloke that said something like that to me got dangled out of a window."

Bennett glanced at the Doctor, then at O'Donnell. "Maybe the Doctor's right. Maybe it's best if you both stay here."

"Never going to happen! Seriously, have you two met me?"

She started to push past the two, but the Doctor put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Look, it's going to be very dangerous out there. I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I don't want either of you getting hurt."

"So why is Bennett going with you?"

"Will you just trust me?"

"I'm not just going to stand around here, doing absolutely nothing, while you two go out on an adventure to save everyone! And I know Diana won't either."

The Doctor set her jaw and loomed over O'Donnell, her eyes hard. "Perhaps you haven't noticed, but Diana isn't up for much adventuring lately. She isn't the woman you read about in all your military files. She's much younger, much more inexperienced, and much, much more afraid. I'm trying to protect her and this is the only way I know how. So please. Just stay here with her."

She released her grip on O'Donnell's arm and stepped back, her eyes focused on the floor. I reached up to grab my necklace, fishing it out from under my shirt and clasping it tightly in my hand. I staggered back a few steps as I tried to process everything the Doctor had said.

"Diana." I hesitantly met the Time Lady's gaze. "I'm sorry."

I shook my head, reaching out for the railing with my free hand. "I don't understand."

"I know. But… just promise me that you'll stay in here until we come back. The TARDIS will keep you both safe."

O'Donnell put a hand on my back. "Come on," she said. "Why don't we sit down?" She looked back at the Doctor. "You'd better explain yourself when you come back."

"I will."

The doors had barely shut behind Bennett and the Doctor before O'Donnell guided me to one of the chairs by the console. The TARDIS whirred softly overhead, making O'Donnell glance around the room as she sat down next to me. "She's talking to us, isn't she? She really is sentient," she murmured. "I'd read in one of the older files that she was, but I-I never actually believed it."

"Did you read about me?" I questioned.

"What?"

I rubbed my thumb across the pendant around my neck. "In your files. The ones with Martha and Amy and Rose and the TARDIS. Did you read about me in them?"

"Yes. You're in all of them."

"And the Doctor?"

O'Donnell laughed softly. "Wherever the Doctor goes, you seem to follow. And we had plenty of files on the two of you." I slumped in my seat and stared up at the ceiling, watching the top of the console spin slowly, wondering what each Gallifreyan symbol meant as they trailed in and out of view. "You okay?"

I nodded. "Just thinking."

A loud roar sounded then, rattling the doors and echoing through the room. O'Donnell and I sat up a little straighter, looking hesitantly at one another. "What was that?" she asked.

I looked back at the door and felt my heart drop to my stomach when the TARDIS whirred nervously. "I can't remember," I said. "It's just out of reach. But it's not good."

A few seconds later, another roar sounded, this time much closer to the ship and much louder. The doors rattled again and O'Donnell stood. She hurried up the ramp and made sure the lock was in place before stepping back a few paces.

I got up and placed a hand on the console. The scanner crackled to life and a grainy image of the area immediately outside the doors appeared. "O'Donnell, look!" She skidded around the console and grabbed hold of the screen. "It's the Fisher King."

"What? That thing in the sheet? I thought it was dead!"The doors jolted as the scanner showed the Fisher King banging on them. "He's trying to get in."

"Nothing can get through those doors," I told her. "Not even the hordes of Genghis Khan and, believe me, they've tried."

"Are you sure?"

The creature delivered another blow to the doors and they rattled again. The TARDIS wheezed angrily and the Fisher King paused, eyeing the ship with his arm raised midair. He roared again, loud enough the O'Donnell and I were forced to cover our ears, and beat his enormous arm against the doors.

Something on the screen caught my eye and I smacked O'Donnell in the arm. "Look. Look!" I shouted, jamming my finger against the scanner. In the corner of the screen I could see the Doctor and Bennett, their faces peering around the edge of the building.

The Doctor stepped out, waving her arms and shouting. The creature stopped and turned to face her, its frustrated grumble drifting through the doors. It stepped forward then, the TARDIS completely forgotten.

"Oh my god," O'Donnell breathed. "It's gonna kill him. We have to do something!"

She ran frantically around the room, searching for something. Finally she stopped, reaching under the console for a fire extinguisher. Then she ran for the doors and unlocked before I could do anything to stop her.

Images of her bloodied dead body flashed across my mind's eye and I stumbled after her. "O'Donnell, wait!" I screamed.

"Don't you dare, you big bloody bastard!" she shouted before beating the creature's spine with it.

The Fisher King howled in pain as she managed to hit it twice in quick succession. Then it turned and smacked her across the chest, her body flying several yards before landing in the grass. Bennett cried out and sprinted after her, kneeling by her side as he checked her injuries. I was standing in the open doorway, frozen in shock as the Fisher King advanced on me.

"Diana, get inside!" the Doctor shouted. "Go!"

I wanted to run. I wanted to hide, to get as far away from the creature as possible. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare I was immersed in and steal a hug from my mother. But my legs refused to move and even as the Fisher King drew closer, I was too terrified to do more than just breathe. I could see every tube running out of the creature's face, the gaping hole that served as its mouth, and the claws stretching out from its hands, yet still I couldn't move.

The creature stopped, his left arm extended towards me with a gun pointed at my head. He sniffed, then lowered his arm and marched towards Bennett and O'Donnell. My legs wobbled and gave out, and I collapsed. I watched as the Doctor sprinted after the Fisher King and knocked it to the ground, her body sprawled out beside him. The gun flew out of its hand and landed at O'Donnell's feet. Bennett scrambled to grab the gun groaned as he managed to pick it up.

A shot echoed throughout the town and blood spattered across the grass. My head started pounding, the world around me started spinning, and then everything went black.

* * *

When I woke up, I could hear gentle, steady beeping somewhere above me. The lights overhead were dimmed slightly and I blinked, trying to clear the sleep from my eyes. Then I remembered what had happened before I passed out and I sat up with a gasp.

I was on a bed with white sheets and a gray blanket draped over my legs. Next to me was an identical bed with O'Donnell fast asleep below the covers. Her arms rested on either side of her torso with an IV sticking out of the back of her hand. I quickly looked away, trying to erase the image of the needle stuck under her skin. I glanced at her face and the machines placed around her bedside; she looked as if she was in a hospital.

An EKG machine stood just behind her IV rack, the source of the beeping I had woken to. That meant she was alive. Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I slid to the ground and hissed when my bare feet touched cool tile. It was then that I spotted Bennett fast asleep in a chair on the opposite side of O'Donnell's bed. He had fallen asleep with his head on the edge of her bed and his hand clasping hers.

I'd made it halfway across the room when the door opened and the Doctor stepped inside. I froze mid step, feeling as if I'd been caught stealing cookies from a cookie jar, as the Doctor stared silently at me. She smiled and I could see the relief written plainly across her face. The door shut with a light click as the Time Lady approached me.

"You're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

She glanced at the other bed. "I see O'Donnell's alright." Her sonic shades were cupped in her hands and I could see the Doctor's fingers trembling slightly as she fiddled halfheartedly with them. "I, um, I'm sorry I had to leave you in here. I had to help the others. The ghosts are trapped in the Faraday cage now."

"Is everyone okay?"

She smiled and nodded. "Yes. They're waiting in the bridge for me, but I had to check on you before I did anything else."

The doors swung open then and Clara burst through the doorway. "Where is she?" she demanded. Her eyes landed on me and, with a sob of relief, she raced across the room and wrapped her arms around me. "You're alright," she breathed into my hair. "I was so worried."

I awkwardly patted her on the back, shooting the Doctor a confused look. "Um, yeah. I-I'm fine," I stammered.

"I thought- I thought I might not see you again. When that ghost appeared, I was so scared." She pulled back and trailed her fingers across my face, brushing away a few stray pieces of hair. "But you're here, you're okay."

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" I asked.

Her brows furrowing together, Clara looked over her shoulder at the Doctor. "You didn't tell her the truth?"

"Well I didn't have a lot of spare time to do that, now did I?"

I pulled out of Clara's grasp and glanced skeptically between the two women. "Tell me what? What's the truth?"

"The ghost wasn't me," the Doctor said. She quickly avoided mine and Clara's eyes for her sonic sunglasses instead. "The, uh, the ghost was you. That's why I wouldn't let you or the others see. I didn't want to frighten you."

" _What?_ "

"You were never in any real danger, Diana. I didn't realize it at the time because I-I-I was so focused on the thought that I might lose you, but you never saw the writing in the ship. The Fisher King and the ghosts were only killing people who had seen the writing, but you never did. Once I realized that, Bennett and I came back to the TARDIS but the Fisher King was already here and, well, you know the rest."

"So it never would have killed me?" I said.

The Doctor shook her head. "No."

"Then why did it come after me? I thought I was going to die."

"It must have only realized you hadn't seen the writing right before it killed you. Without the writing, you're completely useless. So it went after O'Donnell because she was hurt. She would've been an easy kill."

"Doctor!" Clara scolded.

"What? It's true!" she replied.

" _No._ " Clara pointed to something behind the Time Lady: O'Donnell, wide awake and watching us with a pained smile. "See?"

O'Donnell waved her hand dismissively and managed to laugh with only a tiny wince. " 's alright. I know I'm lucky to be alive. If it wasn't for this lump," she said as she patted Bennett on the back, "I probably wouldn't be here. And you too, Doctor."

The Doctor smiled. "How're you feeling?" she asked, checking the EKG and IV after briefly scanning her with the sonic shades.

"Well, I feel like a monstrous alien from outer space whacked me in the chest. But other than that, y'know, I'm feeling great."

"You'll live, luckily for you. All that's left is for me to erase the writing from yours and Bennett's memory. Once that's taken care of, the three of us will be on our way."

O'Donnell hummed softly. "As if you were never here."

"Something like that, yeah."

And so, hardly two minutes later, Bennett and O'Donnell's memories were fixed and we were ready to leave. "Now, once the ship dematerializes, it will leave the two of you behind. Your bed and little machines will stay with you, free of charge," the Doctor explained. "And UNIT will be able to take care of you after that."

Bennett rubbed the sleep from his eyes under his glasses. "Thank you," he said. "For looking after her."

" _Bennett_ ," O'Donnell groaned. "I can say thank you on my own."

He smiled. "I know. But I needed to say it, too."

"You're both very welcome," the Doctor replied. She held out her hand to Clara with a grin. "Shall we go?"

"Oh, could I speak to Diana for a sec before you all go?" O'Donnell asked.

Clara and the Doctor glanced at each other before nodding. "Of course," Clara said. "Just come back to the console room when you're done."

Once the pair left, O'Donnell reached out for me, wiggling her fingers while she waited for me to take her hand. I smiled at her, a little confused as to why she wanted to talk. "I just wanted to tell you something. I saw how scared you were today. The girl I read about in my files, the one who fought off monsters and saved the day? I know she's in there somewhere. And if it takes you ten years to become that girl, that's okay. Being brave is something you have to learn sometimes. But I know she's in there, waiting for you.

"Oh, and one more thing." She looked at Bennett and squeezed his hand. "Clara and the Doctor? They love you. And if you love them at all, in any way, you need to tell them. Don't wait til you're about to die to tell them how you feel. Okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

O'Donnell grinned. "Atta girl. We'll see you around, right?"

The TARDIS hummed softly and I nodded again. "I think so. Maybe. Take care of yourself."

* * *

"So what will UNIT do with the ghosts?" Clara asked, leaning back against the console as the ship wheezed.

The Doctor approached her and pressed a feather light kiss to her forehead. "Drag the cage into space, away from the Earth's magnetic field. With nothing to sustain them, the ghosts will eventually fade away," she explained, fiddling with a few controls on the console.

"Here's what I don't understand. You _did_ change the future. You stopped the Fisher King from returning with that fake ghost of Diana you created."

"The Fisher King had been dead for a hundred and fifty years before we even got here. But once I went back, I became part of events. But here's the thing. The messages Diana's ghost gave, they weren't for you, they were for me. That list of names. Everyone after you and Diana was random, but the both of you being the next two names, _that's_ what made me confront the Fisher King."

"And saying the chamber will open?"

"That was me using Diana's ghost to tell me to get inside and when to set it for, since the TARDIS wouldn't take me to the bridge because it was too close to the ghosts."

Clara nodded with a smile. "Smart."

"Mm. Except that's not why I said them."

"How do you mean?" Clara asked, her brows furrowed as the Doctor circled round the console.

"I programmed my ghost to say them because that's what my ghost had said. And the only reason I created my ghost hologram in the first place was because I saw it here. I was reverse engineering the narrative."

Clara shrugged. "Okay, that's still pretty smart."

"You do not understand," the Doctor said with a smile. "When did I first have those ideas, Clara?"

"Well, it must have been- _Oh._ " She grinned. "Wow."

The Doctor hummed. "Exactly. Who composed Beethoven's Fifth?"

Clara tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

A smile flitted across the Time Lady's face. "So there's this woman and she has a time machine. Up and down history she goes, zip zip zip zip zip, always getting into scrapes." She started up the stairs leading to the second floor, rummaging through a stack of old vinyls. "Another thing she has is a passion for the works of Ludwig van Beethoven." She waved a vinyl labelled 'Beethoven's 5th' at us and then set it down. She paced across the walkway, circling all the way to the opposite end of the room, passing numerous bookcases and a chalkboard. "And one day she thinks, what's the point of having a time machine if you don't get to meet your heroes? So off she goes to eighteenth century Germany. But she can't find Beethoven anywhere. No one's heard of him, not even his family have any idea who the time traveller is talking about." Sitting on a small table was a bust of Beethoven, which she picked up and cradled against her chest. "Beethoven _literally_ doesn't exist." She came back to the main level of the room. "This didn't happen, by the way. I've met Beethoven. Nice chap. Very intense. Loved an arm-wrestle. No, no, this is called the Bootstrap Paradox. Google it."

She started down to the lower level of the room then, the bust of Beethoven still in her arms. Clara grabbed my hand and guided me downstairs. "The time traveller panics," the Doctor continued, setting the bust down on a cushioned footrest with sheet music scattered across it. "She can't bear the thought of a world without the music of Beethoven. Luckily, she brought all of her Beethoven sheet music for Ludwig to sign. So he copies out all the concertos and the symphonies, and _he_ gets them published. He becomes Beethoven. And history continues with barely a feather ruffled." She grabbed an electric guitar from its stand, slipping the strap over her shoulder to situate the instrument as she flipped the amp on and adjusted some of the dials. "But my question is this. Who put those notes and phrases together? Who really composed Beethoven's Fifth?"

The Doctor grinned and winked at Clara and I. With a brush of her fingers on the strings, the beginning notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounded through the console room.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry it's been so long, you guys! All I can say is that I have a lot of stories that I'm working on at the moment and writer's block is a very old friend of mine. But aside from that, I hope you all liked this chapter. It's crazy how much a story changes when you keep just one person from dying. Leave me a review telling me what you liked (or didn't like) and how I can improve so I can keep all of my readers satisfied!**


	4. Across the Stars

Although the Doctor was eager to show off her guitar skills, I found it incredibly difficult to pay her very much attention. She was an excellent player, but my mind was focused on other matters. Any time my eyes closed for more than a moment, I could see the Fisher King advancing on me and prepared to strike me dead.

I sought out the familiar smoothness of my necklace, fiddling with the string before letting it drop on my chest again. Not even my necklace would help qualm my worries. I knew something was wrong. Everything had felt wrong since the moment I first woke in the Drum, but I had pushed all aside as a dream or because we were being attacked. But with a few minutes mostly to myself where I could reflect on everything that happened? Well, that gave my brain free range to point out every horrible thing that could have happened to me.

"Hey, you okay?"

Clara's voice drew me from my thoughts and I stared at her, blinking rapidly as I tried to regain my composure. "What? Yeah, I'm fine," I said quickly.

She briefly squeezed my hand and smiled. "You sure? You've been really quiet ever since we left."

"You look upset," the Doctor noted. "Are you upset?"

I noticed then that she wasn't playing anymore and the guitar simply hung off her shoulder, a little light feedback sounding from the amp. I shook my head, brows furrowed. "No? Why would I be?"

"I think you mean distraught, Doctor," Clara suggested. "What's wrong?"

"I thought I was going to die," I muttered.

Both women looked away guiltily. "I never would have let that happen," the Doctor said seriously. "Neither of us would. It's important you know that."

"No." I clasped my necklace tightly, the semi-sharp points digging into my skin enough to be mildly uncomfortable. "I thought I was going to die," I said again.

"I'm sorry," the Time Lady said. "I never meant for any of this to happen, certainly not for your first time."

I shook my head in frustration. "You don't understand! _I thought I was going to die_. I've had dreams as scary as this before, dreams where I'm being attacked by zombies or I'm falling to my death or I'm in a car crash. And every time, right before I die, I manage to wake myself up. I've always been able to wake myself from a scary dream when I know I'm about to die, but that didn't happen. This whole dream, I haven't been able to wake myself and that's never happened to me before!"

"Diana," the Doctor sighed, "I think maybe it's time I explained." She extended her hand to me with an inviting, yet strained smile. "Come here."

I eyed her hand warily. "Why?"

"I'm not going to bite, not even if you asked me to. Just come here," she teased. I took her hand and found myself being led up to the main level of the console room. The Doctor guided me over to the console, stopping me directly in front of a panel of what looked like squishy gelatin with holes carved into it. "This is the TARDIS's telepathic interface. Anything you think will either show up on the screens or the ship will take you to wherever or whoever you're picturing in your mind."

"Okay…"

The Doctor took both of my hands and placed them on top of the interface; it was cool to the touch, but dry and relatively smooth. She placed her hands over mine and slid our fingers into holes, withdrawing herself once all my fingers were in place. I looked up at her, silently questioning what this was all about.

"Close your eyes," the Time Lady instructed. "Think of your grandmother. Picture her in your mind. Think of the last time you saw her, what she looked like, where she was, what time it was."

"Why?" I asked again.

"Just think of her."

I let out a resigned sigh and shut my eyes, recalling the previous afternoon when I visited her before my work shift started. I pictured sitting down on her mostly red sofa, eating a snack, and talking about the book I had just bought. I could see her perfectly in my mind: her hair loosely curled, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, worn slippers on her feet, and wearing one of her casual outfits. The TARDIS's groaning broke through my mental image and I opened my eyes to see the time rotor bobbing up and down in front of me, lights flashing as the ship materialized.

The Doctor pulled the scanner over so it was between the two of us. "Beaumont, California," she said with a gesture to the screen.

I pulled my hands out from the interface and gaped at the screen. "That's my city," I gasped. "My mom, my grandma, we all live here. How-?"

"Ye of little faith." The Doctor smiled, but there was something sad in her eyes that I couldn't understand. "Would you like to see the information the TARDIS has on your grandmother?"

"Um, sure?"

With just the press of a few buttons, the image of my hometown disappeared and a page of writing appeared instead. In the top left corner was a picture of my grandmother, looking almost exactly as she had the last time I saw her. Her name was printed in all capital letters next to the photograph with a list of her personal details below. Her birthday, age, and name were all normal, but I noticed something odd under the 'spouse' category.

"It says she's married. That's not right. She divorced her husband years ago." I narrowed my eyes slightly. "Wait. It says her husband's name is Johnathan Masserby. This isn't right at all. Her husband's name was William O'Connor."

"What else?" the Doctor asked.

I stared up at her for a few moments, searching her face for _something_ \- I didn't know what. "No, this is all wrong. This says she only had one child, but she had three. Doctor, what's going on?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know," I said lowly, "but whatever this is, it's not funny."

"I want you to think of your mother now."

"Why? So you can pull another joke on me?"

The Doctor inhaled sharply, her eyes screwed shut and her mouth set in a firm line. "Diana, I need you to trust me right now. Just think of your mother, alright? Please."

I hesitantly stuck my fingers back into the interface, closing my eyes again and picturing my mother instead. Her image was much clearer than that of my grandmother. I could see her on the sofa with the dog, her feet propped up after a long work day while a football game played on the TV. She was asleep, snoring, with one hand draped over her stomach and the dog curled up in the bend of her knees.

The TARDIS whirred, then groaned, and then stopped. I opened my eyes and looked at the scanner. The words ' _UNABLE TO LOCATE_ ' were scrawled across the screen in black, blocked letters.

"Why can't it find her?" I asked. When nobody answered, I grabbed onto the Doctor's sleeve and turned her towards me. " _Doctor!_ What is going on? Why can't it find my mom?"

The Time Lady said nothing, did nothing. She barely even breathed. Shouldering her aside, I went to the console keyboard and typed my mother's name out: Sofia Scott. Again, the scanner showed no results, the same three words as before blinking before my eyes. I tried her name again. And again. Growling in frustration, I typed out my grandmother's name and began scrolling through the information that popped up.

Everything was wrong. The TARDIS's information said that my grandmother had gotten married to a sailor at the age of twenty one and they had their first child nearly a year later. That child was named Michael Masserby. There was no Sofia, no Samuel, just Michael. I had only ever met my Uncle Michael once.

I typed in my grandfather's name. William O'Connor existed, but he had never met my grandmother. He had married some girl four years younger than him who hadn't graduated high school because she got pregnant. They had four children together and after the fourth child left home, he died in a drunk driving accident.

My hands were trembling and my head was pounding. I quickly typed in my father's name and felt relief flood through my body when the scanner said that he existed. He was almost exactly the same as he was back home, married to the same woman, living in the same city, and working at a nearly identical job.

I looked back at the Doctor. "What's going on?"

She smiled sadly again. "I think you know, Diana."

"Why can't I find my mom?"

"She doesn't exist in this universe."

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. "Don't say that. Don't say that."

"Things are different here, Diana. Your mother was never born, so she never met your father, so _you_ were never born."

"Doctor, stop," Clara said, resting a hand on the Time Lady's arm. "You're scaring her."

"Clara, how else am I supposed to tell her?"

I looked back at the scanner where my father smiled at me. The longer I looked at his picture, the less he looked like himself. I could see parts of his face that didn't seem right or they weren't how I remembered.

"Diana, I know this is… impossible and scary, but you need to understand what's going on."

"No," I snapped. "Stop."

"Diana-"

"Stop. Shut up. Just stop talking." I typed out the name of one of my best friends, waiting anxiously while the TARDIS loaded her results. "No. No, god, please, not her." The words ' _UNABLE TO LOCATE_ ' flashed at me again and I felt tears prick at my eyes. I rapidly typed out the name of my other friend, her twin, and felt something inside me shatter when the same result appeared. " _No._ "

Clara reached out to touch my arm, but I wrenched away from her with a sob. "No, this- this is just a dream. A vivid dream," I said to myself.

"Diana, it's not," Clara said.

"I've had a dream like this before. A long time ago. I dreamed that my best friends died. It was so vivid that I thought it was real. That's all this is." I cupped my necklace in my hand, holding it close to my heart as I stared absently at the scanner. "It's just a dream."

The Doctor put an arm around Clara's shoulders as she gazed sadly at me. They both looked so impossibly sad. "This isn't a joke. We would never play a prank like this on you. Diana, this is real. I know you've been through enough already and perhaps I didn't go about it the right way, but you need to know what's happened to you."

"Nothing's happened to me! Stop saying things like that," I begged. "Look, maybe I'm sick or-or I'm in a coma or something. I don't know! But there has to be a logical reason, a-a _real_ reason why I can't wake up, why this is all so vivid."

"Diana-"

"No. I know what you're going to say. Don't think I haven't been considering it in the back of my mind this entire time. But it's not possible. It's not possible and it's cliché and I _know_ this is a dream. It's too much like a dream to be anything else, okay? Don't you dare say it's anything other than a dream."

I brushed past the two and started for the doors, my heart pounding with determination. The Doctor called after me, begging me to stop and come back, but I ignored everything she said. I had recognized the block the TARDIS had landed on. I could find my way home, to my house or to my grandma's house, and then everything would be fine. I would be with my family and we'd go back to bickering every afternoon like parents and children do.

As I stepped outside, I felt a wave of warm air blow against my face. Typical Southern California weather, not below freezing and ridiculously cold Scotland weather. The ship had materialized several miles away from my house on the main street in town, right by the library. But as I looked around, I felt a wave of nausea come over me as I began to realize that everything was somehow off.

The buildings were identical, but something about them wasn't the same. The streets were worn and patched up with faded paint, the same streets I had driven on countless times, but they looked wrong. Everything looked the same, yet a dozen differences screamed out at me, telling me that I wasn't in the right place at all.

And no matter what logic dictated or what reasonable excuses my brain created, I still knew why nothing seemed right anymore.

"Diana," the Doctor said behind me, "come back inside."

I stood frozen on the sidewalk, tears welling in my eyes and catching in my eyelashes. A sob caught in my throat and I coughed. The Doctor said my name again and then I felt her hands rest on my shoulders, but I didn't pull away.

"Come on," she said softly.

I vaguely remember being led back inside and sitting down. Both Clara and the Doctor tried talking to me, but I couldn't even hear them. My entire world felt like it was crumbling and falling apart. In a way, it already had.

"I want to go home," I croaked.

Clara rested a hand on my knee, drawing me partially from my thoughts, and I realized that she was kneeling in front of me. "What do you need?"

Tears spilled down my cheeks. "My mom," I sobbed.

She immediately drew me into her arms, resting her cheek against my head as I cried into her shoulder. I slipped off of the chair and fell into heap in front of the schoolteacher, curling in on myself. Clara gently ran a hand through my hair as she whispered comforting nonsense in my ear.

Through my sobs, I heard the TARDIS wheeze and groan. I hiccuped, opening my eyes for a moment to see the time rotor moving and the lights flashing. Clara rubbed my back as she moved to sit next to me, stretching her legs out in front of her. I stared at her plaid skirt, following every crease in the fabric as it draped over her thighs and splayed out onto the grated floor. It suddenly seemed like the most interesting thing in entire world.

I saw her hand creep into view, but I ignored it. She twirled a strand of my hair around her index finger and then tucked it behind my ear. "Di? What are you thinking?" she asked.

A switch in my mind suddenly flipped and I burst into tears again, falling back against the chair as sobs racked through my body. Clara pulled me towards her and pressed her lips to my temple, running her hands over my hair and neck in an attempt to soothe me. A part of me wanted to run far away from both of them so I could cry in solitude, but the other part wanted desperately for someone to take care of me and tell me everything would be okay.

Perhaps Clara could read minds because she enveloped me in a warm, tight hug and whispered in my ear that everything would be okay. I buried my face in her shoulder as the ship wheezed again and a gentle thud sounded shortly after. I felt Clara move her head to look past me, at the Doctor most likely.

"Where are we?"

"Rosakur. About a million billion lightyears away from Earth, more or less." The Doctor's voice cracked on the last few words. I looked up and, through the tears blurring my vision, I saw her leaning against the console and pointedly looking away from me. She coughed. "I thought perhaps a change of scenery might help."

Clara played with the ends of my hair. "Do you want to go outside?" she wondered.

I sniffled and rubbed my cheek against her shoulder, suddenly feeling very self conscious. I sat up quickly and wiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand. I couldn't look at either of them; I felt too ashamed. But I knew I didn't want to be stuck in the TARDIS.

"Yeah," I said as I got to my feet. I made a beeline for the doors and hurried outside without a second thought. A blast of cool air blew in my face as I stepped onto soft, grassy ground and I realized then that I hadn't put any shoes on after I woke up. I looked up at the sky and felt my breath catch in my throat. "Woah."

The sky was a pale shade of pink dusted with little white clouds and two yellow, bright suns. A bird of some kind flew overhead, its wingspan easily equal to my height, and swooped into a grove of trees several yards away at the base of a hill. The hill that the TARDIS had landed on, more specifically. And just beyond the grove was an endless stretch of dark blue water.

"Rosakur is known for two things," said the Doctor as she stood in the open doorway. "Its rose pink sky and its great, singular ocean that never ventures deeper than about ten feet. I thought you might appreciate coming here."

I managed to spare the Time Lady a glance, but couldn't say anything. She looked at me for a moment and then gestured to the planet with a nod of her head. "You can stay out here as long as you want. We won't follow you. Come back when you're ready." Then she went back inside and closed one of the doors behind her.

I started down the hill, letting the grass crumple under my feet and brush against my ankles. The breeze was light and cool, not enough to make me shiver but enough to equal out the heat from the two suns partway to the center of the sky. A bird called from somewhere in the grove and its song was sweeter than any I had heard on Earth. The tree leaves rustled in the breeze and as the sunlight shimmered on them, I noticed that they weren't green but a dark teal.

The grove was small and smelled of cinnamon. Dead leaves were scattered across the ground amongst twigs and fallen trees. I could see through the trees to where the water met the land in a black sandy beach, not unlike one I had visited several years ago in New Zealand. When I stepped into the grove, the leaves crunched under my feet and the twigs snapped but nothing scraped or pierced my skin like I had anticipated. I made my way through the grove, gazing at the treetops and listening to the leaves whisper as the birds chirped.

There was no trail that led to the beach, just a slow progression from grass to dirt to sand. The sand only reached a few feet out from the edge of the grove and it was still slightly damp. A gentle wave rolled onto the beach and tickled my toes, the water sparkling with grains of sand as it retreated. I sighed as the water washed farther up my feet, closing my eyes and focusing solely on the sound of the waves and the birds and feel of the wind in my hair.

* * *

It was at least an hour later when I returned to the TARDIS, if the moving of the twin suns were anything like Earth's sun. My skirt was still slightly wet after I had trailed into the water up to my thighs and then laid down on the sand to dry. And I was still reeling from the realization of exactly where I was, but the sea air and grove of cinnamon trees had cleared my mind.

When I stepped inside the ship, the doors closed behind me and the TARDIS hummed softly. Neither Clara nor the Doctor were in sight, so I assumed I had the room to myself. I walked over to the console and smiled despite myself when the lights blinked and the ship whirred at me. I moved to the second level of the room, curious to see what books the Doctor had on display. But even with countless books to distract me, my mind kept returning to the telepathic interface on the console. There was one person I hadn't looked up before.

I hurried down the steps, my feet patting softly on the grating. My hands hovered over the interface as I considered what I might find if the TARDIS took me where I wanted to go. Instead, I moved to the keyboard and typed out a name: Cassandra Tangotango Mészöly.

The scanner was blank for a few seconds until a picture appeared next to the name I had written. Fresh tears welled in my eyes and I let out a sob of relief as I saw the face of my friend and ex-partner, a face I hadn't seen in over a year. They were born in the same city and on the same day, to the same parents, and in the same home that I remembered. But instead of having a younger sister, they had a fraternal twin brother: Hemi Roland Mészöly. Both siblings had the same upbringing that my Cassandra had, going to the same schools and being in the same kapa haka group. Cassandra was genderfluid, just like I remembered, and Hemi was pan like my Cassandra's little sister.

I rushed to the telepathic interface and slid my fingers in, picturing this Cassandra in my mind. The ship wheezed and dematerialized a few seconds later. I looked at the scanner, staring only at the picture of the person I had fallen in love with years ago. The TARDIS landed with a jolt and a final wheeze. I ripped my hands away and bolted for the doors, ripping them open and stumbling outside.

I was in Te Aroha, New Zealand, a place I had only visited once. The TARDIS had parked on a city block right next to a chip shop. Through the window, I could see Cassandra and their brother with a third person standing next to them. I pushed open the door, a smile on my face as I started towards them, but I stopped when I saw Cassandra holding hands with the stranger. It was a girl with waist length dark hair and light brown skin, of a similar build to myself and about my height.

"What's taking so long?" Cassandra snapped at one of the workers. "I'm kind of busy."

I stared incredulously at them. They were never rude to anybody, let alone food service workers. Cassandra was always polite to workers.

One of the workers hurried over to the counter with a nervous smile. "I'm so sorry. Here's your order. Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"No, not if it's going to take another ten fucking minutes."

The worker tried to continue smiling. "Alright. Well have a nice day," she said.

Hemi grabbed the chips and started for the door, shouldering rudely past me when I was too stunned to move out of the way. Cassandra met my eyes and didn't even blink when they saw me. They looked me up and down once, flashed me a patronizing smile, and left with the other girl holding tightly to their hand.

The worker at the counter smiled tiredly at me. "Can I help you, miss?"

I stammered wordlessly for a few seconds. "A-Are they always like that?" I asked, not caring that my American accent and lack of shoes made me stick out like a sore thumb.

The worker nodded. "I'm afraid so. Is there anything I can get you?"

"I-I…" I shook my head. "No, I'm sorry. I don't have any money."

I stepped out of the shop in a daze, replaying the scene over and over in my mind. I pushed the TARDIS door open and stepped inside, immediately met with Clara and the Doctor waiting for my by the console. The Doctor frowned when she spotted me.

"What's wrong?" Clara asked as I sat down.

"They didn't even recognize me," I said, holding onto my necklace.

"Who, them?" the Doctor wondered, pointing to the scanner.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Who are they?"

I took a shaky breath as tears welled up in my eyes again, spreading to my eyelashes and sticking to my glasses. I tugged lightly on my necklace and choked back a sob. "They gave me this necklace. In Māori culture, pounamu- greenstone, it's sacred. You give it to loved ones and friends as a gift and it's supposed to mean something. I haven't taken this necklace off since they gave it to me and… they didn't even know who I was. They looked right through me." I looked up and my gaze flickered between Clara and the Time Lady. "That wasn't my Cassandra. They were horrible."

Clara rested a hand on my shoulder and I resisted the urge to shake it off. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Can we go back to-to that planet?" I asked. "I don't want to be here right now."

Clara smiled. "Of course."

The Doctor typed something out on the keyboard and pulled on a lever. The ship dematerialized and I heaved a sigh of relief. I looked down at my necklace, tracing my thumb over the familiar shape and wishing more than I had ever wished for anything that I was back home where everything was right and normal.

"We're back," the Doctor said after the TARDIS landed.

"Thanks," I muttered halfheartedly.

I was through the doors in a flash, racing down the hill and into the grove in a matter of seconds. Birds cawed and flew away as I trampled through the trees. I ran to the water, splashing up to my hips and then halting. I looked up at the sky where the twin suns shone down on me. Was it the same day, the same hour? I grabbed hold of my necklace and sunk below the water, squeezing my eyes shut and blocking out the rest of the world, the rest of the universe. I screamed.

* * *

I rolled onto my side and blinked wearily for a few seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim light shining through my window. I sat up, looked around, and fell onto my back again, staring emptily at the ceiling. A gentle whirring noise sounded from the ceiling.

"Go away," I mumbled.

I leaned over and grabbed my glasses off the bedside table, then sat up and leaned back against the headboard. My room was mostly bare, only decorated with a bed, a desk beneath the window, a few bookcases, and a closet. There was a lamp on the desk with a black shade with no opening on the top, just pinpricked all over in the shape of constellations. My bedsheets were a pale turquoise and the bookcases were white, balancing nicely with the cream colored walls.

"At least this room isn't a total fucking disaster," I sighed. "Not like…" _Not like my old room._

Sliding out of bed, I shuffled over to the closet and pulled out some clean clothes. I took my glasses off and tossed them onto my bed, then headed into the hallway. The bathroom was just opposite my room, the door just a plain white door with white trim. I looked back at the bedroom door and sighed. White with a silver handle and my name written in silver, cursive letters.

I took very long, steaming hot shower. Some of the pale blue coloring in my hair washed out with shampoo. I considered driving to the local beauty parlor for some more hair dye and bleach until I remembered where I was. Then I grabbed the soap and started cleaning my face. _Maybe the TARDIS has some hair dye_ , I thought. _I've been meaning to change the color. Purple would be nice._

After I dried off and got dressed, I blow dried my hair and padded back into the hallway barefoot. I considered just going into my room and not coming out again, but there were only so many books and no food. I grabbed my glasses and map, and started for the console room.

 _The Doctor doesn't have very nice handwriting_ , I noted. She had given me the map after showing me to my room. According to her, the TARDIS often moved rooms around when people got lost but hardly ever any other time. The map showed the way from the console room to the wardrobe, kitchen, library, mine, Clara's, and the Doctor's rooms, and to the swimming pool. "I thought I should put down the most important places," she had told me.

My stomach rumbled and I quickly located the kitchen. _Wonder what time it is. How does that even work? My internal time schedule is different from Clara's and the Doctor's. Do I just guess? Should I get a watch? Would that even work? Don't certain things not work inside the TARDIS, like guns?_

The kitchen was very pretty. The walls were painted a pale sunflower yellow and accented with white cupboards and appliances. There weren't any windows, but there was a painting above the sink of a grassy field and a mildly cloudy sky. I folded the map up and stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans, then started searching the refrigerator for something appetizing. A few minutes later, I was leaning against the kitchen counter munching on cereal while I waited for my bagel to finish toasting.

I had barely taken my first bite of buttered bagel when the Doctor appeared in the doorway. "Diana!" she exclaimed.

I half choked on my food. "Hi," I said after swallowing.

"Sorry, I know you probably wanted some time to yourself. I was getting very fidgety just sitting in my room and I wanted to check on you, make sure you were alright." She glanced at the empty bowl behind me and then at the bagel in my hand. "I see you found food."

"Uh, yeah. That's okay, right?"

"Of course! This is your kitchen too, you know," she said. I noticed then that she had one hand hidden behind her back. "I, er, I actually wanted to-to give you something, if that's alright. The TARDIS and I worked on this while you were asleep."

I set the bagel down on the counter and wiped my hands on my pants. "You made something? For me?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. I thought- well, _we_ thought that these might help you." She stepped forward and set a few things down on the kitchen table. There was a set of glasses identical to mine, a very fancy looking cell phone, and a book that looked remarkably like River Song's diary. "The TARDIS made this herself," she said as she picked up the phone. "It's made from a special type of glass found on the planet Zirkam. It's unbreakable by just about anything, except for lasers. It's got my number, Clara's number, and a few other people you've yet to meet. This way if you ever get lost and you need help, you won't be alone."

"Thank you. That's really nice of you. You didn't have to do that," I said.

"Of course I did." The Doctor extended the phone to me. "It's just like Clara's phone, apparently. I think she called it an iPhone?"

I turned the phone over in my hand and then quickly slipped it into my pocket when the Doctor picked up the book. She looked at it for a few seconds and then handed it to me. "The TARDIS made this for you, as well. It's a journal. Since you and I end up going on a number of adventures, I suppose this is something you'll need," she sighed.

"And this," she said, picking up the glasses, "this is what _I_ made for you. Sonic shades. Except, well they're not always shades. They're sonic glasses that can turn into shades if you need them to."

"What, like your glasses?"

The Doctor grinned. "Exactly like them! All the functions of your basic sonic screwdriver tucked inside a pair of normal looking glasses. Oh, and they can access the wifi so you can go on the internet without your phone if you need to."

I titled my head to the side, repressing the urge to laugh. "Is that why you seem to know everything? Do you just look things up as you go?"

The Doctor scoffed, brushing my comment aside with a wave of her hand. "I would- I would never stoop so low," she said casually. "I'm just naturally intelligent."

The TARDIS made a noise that sounded more like laughter than just whirring.

"On, and your phone and glasses are linked. Sort of like bluetooth, I suppose. Only, not." She shook her head. "Your phone is also linked to your internal clock. The TARDIS started scanning you the minute you appeared" - she winced at the word, but continued anyways - "and so your phone will be able to tell you what time it is as if you were still on Earth and had never time travelled at all."

I raised my eyebrows as the Doctor handed the glasses to me. "Wow. You thought of everything, didn't you?" I said as I switched the glasses.

"Actually you were the one who suggested it."

I paused mid motion, the glasses halfway tucked behind my ears. "No, I don't think I've ever suggested anything like this."

The Time Lady shrugged and glanced away, lightly scratching her cheek. "Well, you gave me the idea, so to speak. But that's not important." She smiled excitedly. "Do you like them?"

"The glasses?"

"Everything."

I pushed the glasses up my nose and they beeped softly. The lenses turned black and I jumped in surprise. "Woah! They're sunglasses!"

"Touching the bridge makes them switch to shades or just regular lenses." She skirted around the table and moved to stand in front of me. "If you touch them here," she said, pressing a finger to part where the frames met the metal that hooked over my ears, "and think about what you want to do, they go sonic. So they're also a bit telepathic."

"So they work like your screwdriver?"

"Mm hm." She stepped back then, her hands gesturing as she talked. "For example, you need to fix a bulb that went out. You just look at the bulb, hold the glasses the right way, and look at the bulb, it'll get fixed just like that!" she said, adding a snap at the end for effect.

I pressed the bridge of the glasses and switched them black to regular lenses. "These are- They're amazing. Thank you."

The Doctor shoved her hands into her pockets and shrugged. "It's nothing. I wanted to help you, Diana. I know this universe isn't your home and I know you probably don't want to talk about it right now, but these things will help you. They'll make things easier for you."

"You didn't have to go through so much trouble," I said as I ran my hands along the journal. Its cover was textured into little boxes with ridges around them, like the TARDIS doors were. "But still. Thank you."

"Of course."

I turned around to grab my bagel and bowl, trying to ignore the awkward silence floating between us. I set the bowl in the sink and ran some water to rinse it out, casually munching on the bagel while I waited. My throat went dry suddenly and my last bite of food stuck in my throat as a sharp pain ran from my chest down my limbs. The bagel fell into the sink and I lurched forward as my muscles seized up.

"Doctor!" I felt her hand rest between my shoulder blades as I somehow managed to swallow my food. "I-I-I can't move," I stammered. "My muscles are cramping or something."

"It's okay. You're going to be okay."

I groaned, my eyes squeezing shut as a vein in my temple started pulsating and my lungs constricted painfully. "What's happening?"

"You're fading."

I managed to turn my head so our eyes met. "What?"

"I'm sorry," she said as her eyes welled with unshed tears. "I thought you had more time. I was going to tell you-"

"Tell me _what?_ " I shrieked.

"You're time jumping. I'm sorry! There's nothing I can do to stop it. But wherever you go, I'll be there, Diana." Her hand cupped my cheek. "I'll find you. I promise."

The Doctor's face began to fade away like late morning mist. Her body and the entire kitchen disappeared and faded into the same swirling vortex that had taken me to the lake. Suddenly, I was free falling as golden tendrils of light wrapped themselves around my body. I was still holding onto the journal and my old glasses, but then my body was jerked to the side and the glasses were ripped from my fingers. Lightning crackled around me and then, I fell hard onto a patch of grass.

My vision was a little blurry for a second and my head had already started aching. I sat up, moaning about the ache in my bones, and nearly had a heart attack when a person ran over to me and knelt at my side. It was a woman with dark black skin, a semi shaved head, and a leather jacket. She had big, dark brown eyes and incredibly long lashes.

"Diana," she breathed. "Are you alright?"

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter was a lot of fun to write. Now all the people Di mentioned as being either her friends or family are actually based on real people in my life. Di's grandma, for example, is based off of my grandma and this was my way of giving her a better life than the one she has. And Cassandra is based on my real life partner, who is also named Cassandra and is partially Māori & Hungarian.**

 **Anyways, I hope you guys liked this chapter and don't forget to leave a review telling me what you thought! As for the next chapter, here's a sneak peak. It's called 'The Beast of Babylon'!**


	5. The Beast of Babylon: Part 1

_Lightning crackled around me and then, I fell hard onto a patch of grass._

 _My vision was a little blurry for a second and my head had already started aching. I sat up, moaning about the ache in my bones, and nearly had a heart attack when a person ran over to me and knelt at my side. It was a woman with dark black skin, a semi shaved head, and a leather jacket. She had big, dark brown eyes and incredibly long lashes._

 _"Diana," she breathed. "Are you alright?"_

I nodded once, cautiously eyeing the woman who was much too close for comfort. "Who are you?" I asked.

My words obviously hurt her because she visibly flinched and looked away for a moment. "It's- It's me. The Doctor." She met my eyes again and smiled unconvincingly. "I take it you're still new here, then?"

 _Of course_ , I thought, mentally smacking myself in the head. _Leather jacket, Northern accent? Of course it's the Doctor._ "Yeah. Um, sorry, I just didn't recognize you," I said.

"That's alright, love," she laughed. It wasn't a real laugh. She jumped to her feet and extended her hand to me, helping me up. "Now, I want you to go back to the TARDIS."

I held the journal to my chest, shivering a little when a cold breeze drifted between us. "Why? Where is it?"

"It's just over there," she said, pointing behind her to where the ship was parked under a tree. It was standing at the edge of a lake where, far on the opposite shore, a city with sparkling white skyscrapers stood. "I want you to go inside and stay there until I come back."

"Why?" I repeated. "Is something wrong?"

The Doctor shook her head and smiled again, the turn of her lips a little more genuine than before. "No, but there's going to be an attack on this city any second now and I don't want you getting hurt. Please, just go inside. I'll come back for you."

"Okay," I answered. "I will."

"Thank you." She leaned closer to me, kissed the crown of my head, and then ran off, shouting over her shoulder, "I'll be back!"

I watched as the Time Lady practically sprinted across the grass, gradually making her way to the city. There was a small crowd of people gathered there, some of them sitting under trees or on flat ground, but they were so far away that I couldn't see very much. I turned back to the TARDIS and looked at her for a moment. How was I going to get in without the Doctor or a key? I looked at the opposite shore of the lake and I thought I could see the Doctor closing in on the group, but I couldn't be sure.

Something in my back pocket dinged and I started, looking around frantically for the source of the sound. Then I realized that the sound was coming from the phone in my pocket. _Stupid._ I pulled the phone out and pressed the button at the bottom of the screen. A swipe of my finger unlocked the screen and showed me a home page with several apps, one of them being the message app with a little number one at the top.

The app opened up to show me that I had received a new text message from a contact labeled 'Idris'. The message read: ' _Try snapping._ ' I looked back at the TARDIS, recognizing the name as that of the human woman whose body she had possessed many years ago. I walked over to the ship and stared up at her, studying the dark blue doors and white lettering. Readjusting the phone and journal in my left hand, I raised my other and snapped at her. The doors swung open immediately and for a second, I forgot to breathe.

A chill ran down my spine as I stepped, still barefoot, from grass to metal grating. The ship whirred and hummed the moment I entered, the lights brightening to better illuminate the orange coral braces along the walls. The console itself was enormous, stretching up to a ceiling that arched much higher than the other Doctor's had.

My phone dinged again and this time I noticed that it vibrated too. ' _You dropped your map._ ' I whirled around, searching the floor for the map the Doctor had made for me. It was outside, fluttering gently in the breeze and starting to unfold. I scrambled outside and swept it up before the wind could blow it away, quickly refolding it and placing it between a few pages in my journal.

Just then, a scream echoed across the lake and I nearly dropped my things. I started forward a few paces, stepping out from under the tree. On the opposite shore, standing amongst the skyscrapers, were two enormous, shadowy figures. They looked like two men made only out of wind and clouds as leaves and dust blew wildly around them. Their faces were almost terrifying to look: both of them completely identical and both sporting a blank, empty expression. One of them suddenly bent over and picked something up. He looked at the thing in his hand, his expression still void of any feeling or emotion. Something shone brightly in his eyes, but he didn't look away.

Then the two men shouted something incoherent. The light in the one man's hand shone brighter, bright enough that I had to shade my eyes, and then they were both sucked into a tornado that literally appeared out of nowhere. The giant men shouted again and then everything went silent. The tornado evaporated into thin air and then a blast of wind and sound shot across the sky.

The wind knocked me in the chest and threw me to the ground, my phone and journal tumbling down with me. I sat up with a groan, balancing my weight on my elbows, and saw what looked like silver rain falling on the far end of the lake. I gathered my things, checking to make sure the map hadn't flown away when I dropped it, and struggled to my feet.

The TARDIS whirred nervously at me and the light on top flashed twice. I cast the city a final glance before hurrying inside the ship. The doors slammed shut behind me and then the ship wheezed. I fell against the railing, my feet scraping against the grating as she dematerialized. I stumbled over to the jumpseat and dropped my things on one end before sitting down.

With a final groan, the TARDIS let out what almost sounded like a sigh. On the opposite side of the room, somebody coughed and I shot to my feet. "Who's there?" I demanded.

"Diana, it's me," the Doctor said.

I raced around the console to see the Time Lady braced on her hands and knees, coughing and looking slightly charred. "What happened?" I asked.

"Castor and Pollux."

"Who?" The Doctor cleared her throat and struggled to her feet, her legs wobbling slightly. I rushed to her side and grabbed onto her arm to steady her. "Are you okay?"

She smiled and nodded as she gently patted my hands. "I'll live," she teased. She then looked up at the time rotor and frowned. "What happened, old girl? You took your sweet time!"

"What are you talking about?"

"She was supposed to come after me once the orb destroyed Castor and Pollux, but she took her sweet bloody time. I nearly died!"

The TARDIS seemed to laugh at her pilot. I smiled, looking from the console to the Doctor. "Something tells me you might be exaggerating," I chuckled.

The Doctor rolled her eyes as she stepped past me and collapsed on the jumpseat. "Of course you two gang up on me."

"What happened?" I asked again, leaning against the railing that encircled the platform. "Those things, what were they?"

"I thought I told you to wait for me inside?"

"I left my map outside and I had to go get it! Then those things appeared and… exploded? It happened in, like, seconds. It was so fast."

The Doctor ran a hand over her head and exhaled heavily, tilting her head back and stretching out her long legs. She scratched a bit just behind her ear and then jumped up. "I'll explain everything," she said as she started working at the console, "but first I have to find that orb."

I sat down in the Doctor's spot. "What orb?"

"Come here and hold this down for me, will you?"

Heaving myself out of the seat with an annoyed groan, I grabbed hold of the lever the Doctor had pointed out and held it down. She gestured to a flashing button about a foot to my right and I moved to hold it down as well. The TARDIS shuddered and moaned as she dematerialized and then rematerialized a few seconds later. The Doctor was already halfway out the door before I had even taken my hands off the console.

My fingers lingered on the lever for a moment and the device sparked. Something shot up my arm and into my brain, electricity or a current of some other kind, and I yelped. I yanked my hand away and backed up until I hit the railing. My arm and hand felt tingly, so I gently tried to rub some feeling back into my muscles whilst suspiciously side-eyeing the console.

The Doctor came back inside a minute later, her brows furrowed and her mouth pulled into a frown. She walked up to the scanner and typed something out on the keyboard. Some kind of video footage appeared on the screen and started playing, showing a closer view of what had happened during the attack.

The people I had seen from my end of the lake weren't people at all, but aliens of all different kinds. There were humanoids in every color possible, little fuzzy creatures that looked more like large rodents or raccoons, and strange humanoid-crustacean creatures in shades of red, orange, and pink. Through all the aliens, I saw one humanoid that looked incredibly human. It was the Doctor, running across the grass and yelling soundlessly at something in the sky. She pulled something bright and shiny from her pocket and waved it in the air, moments before an enormous hand reached down and grabbed hold of her. A few seconds later, silver rain fell from the sky and dissolved upon touching the ground. But several yards back, under a tree with a picnic half spread out, one of the humanoid-crustacean creatures reached down and picked up a silver orb with its claw.

"That's it," the Doctor said. "She has it."

"She?" I echoed.

"That girl, she found the orb." The Doctor typed something out on the keyboard again and the creature's face was surrounded by a little square. Her face expanded into a minutely grainy image and beside it, a few rows of writing appeared. "There, that's where she lives. There's a little lake by her home. We'll go there and look for her."

"We?"

"Yeah, it's safe this time. Now come back here and help me, love." She pointed at the same lever that had shocked me only a minute ago. "Hold this down for me again. And that switch right next to it, flip it."

Something happened the instant my hands touched the console. Time seemed to slow down and when I looked down at the lever, I somehow knew exactly what it was and what it did. The same with the switch beside it, the flashing button I'd held down before, and all of the other controls on the panel. I pulled my hands away and stared agape at the console, my mind whirring.

"Di, what's wrong?"

I blinked rapidly, shook my head, and looked at the panel again. The knowledge was still there, waiting for me. I glanced at the panel beside it and felt the wheels in my mind start to turn. I stepped to my left and spread my fingers out across the controls.

"Where are you trying to go?" I asked.

The Doctor stammered for a second. "Er, th-the lake. Why-?"

I looked up at the scanner and saw the coordinates typed out in a string of simple black numbers and letters. Below the keyboard were several other boards, each with a block of buttons in different colors. I quickly typed out a number onto the green pad, twisted the dial of the locking-down mechanism through one full rotation, and then pulled on the lever that had originally shocked me, the phase controller.

Once the ship started to dematerialize, I went to the panel on the opposite side of the console and grabbed hold of the helmic regulator, which the Doctor had obviously repaired by turning it into a bike pump. I pushed down slowly and then pulled out, listening to the ship as she took off and trying to feel for any bumps in the ride. The wheezing paused and I raced back to the phase controller and pulled the lever up so the ship would rematerialize.

"How did you-? I thought you couldn't fly her yet?"

"She showed me," I said, stepping back so I could look up at the time rotor. "I mean, she electrocuted my hand to do it, but she showed me how to fly her."

The Doctor laughed. "That was- That was incredible! She hasn't flown this smoothly in years!"

I smiled proudly and held my chin up a little higher than usual. The TARDIS whirred happily and for the first time in a long time, I felt proud of something I'd done. Grabbing my hand, the Doctor pulled me down the ramp and through the doors outside.

It was nighttime, if the multiple moons in the darkened sky were anything to go by. The TARDIS had materialized beneath a large tree, several branches hanging low enough to cover the ship almost entirely. Along the banks of the lake were patches of reeds and tall trees with drooping branches. Little slivers of moonlight trickled through the leaves and danced across the lake surface and when I turned to look at the Doctor, I saw a beam of light illuminating her face. The moonlight shimmered in her eyes and I forgot to breathe.

"I think you might have gotten the timing a bit off, though," she said softly.

"Oh." It was the only thing I could think to say.

The Doctor smiled. "That's alright. We're still on schedule." Her eyes darted across the lake's surface and then narrowed. "There she is. That girl who took the orb."

Several yards away was the humanoid-crustacean that had appeared on the scanner. She was at least a foot taller than the Doctor with four claw-like legs and two arms, one ending in a large claw and another a human-ish hand. A hard, crab-like shell stretched across the lower half of her body, which looked more like the main part of a beetle, whilst her upper half looked more like a human torso. Her face looked mostly human, except for the eight feelers around her very large mouth. Two long antennae sprung out from her shoulder blades, arching forward over her shoulders and then curling up to rest in a curlicue by her eyes. All four of her black, beady little eyes.

"What is she?" I whispered.

The Doctor frowned at me, nudging me in the ribs with her elbow. "Don't be so rude," she scolded. "She's a Karkinian. This is her planet. Now when we go over there, don't stare."

"O-Okay."

We stepped quietly around the lake, my feet starting to tingle as the coolness of the ground soaked through my skin. I kept my gaze on the strange girl, watching her eyes blink in unison as she stared almost longingly at the water. She didn't look sad, but she obviously wasn't happy.

She picked up a pebble with her human hand, running her fingers over the stone before tossing it into the water. The Doctor and I came up behind her then, and I wondered how she hadn't heard us approaching or the TARDIS landing. The Doctor loosened her grip on my hand and moved to stand behind the girl, her other hand resting in her coat pocket.

"I want it back."

The girl didn't move. "What?" she asked.

"You know what."

"How can you be so sure I've got it?" she said, and I noticed that she had a slightly Northern accent like the Doctor's.

The Doctor hummed and lightly nudged a few pebbles around with the toe of her shoe. "You know, when I first saw you I said to myself, here's someone special."

The girl froze and then turned to face us, her eyes flickering between the Doctor and I. The skin above her topmost eyes furrowed together as if she had eyebrows. Perhaps she did. "This thing you're looking for. What is it?" she questioned. "Why should I give it back to you?"

"I can't tell you that. But let's just say that the fate of a planet - an insignificant little planet, but a planet I'm rather fond of - is in your power." _Earth?_ I wondered. "Besides, it's not yours. I lost it in a fight."

The girl grinned and I couldn't help my mouth falling open upon seeing the rows and rows of sharp teeth in her skull. "I saw that," she said. "It didn't look like much of a fight to me. More of a massacre, really. You weren't exactly winning."

The Time lady shrugged. "I had a plan," she mumbled. "It sort of worked."

"And the plan involved the thing you're looking for? Which I'm not going to give to you until you tell me exactly what it is, by the way."

"Then I'll have to make you, won't I?" the Doctor said seriously.

I stared incredulously at the Time Lady, hardly believing she'd resort to threatening an innocent, if not curious, alien girl. The girl smiled at me and her eyes flitted back to rest on the Doctor's face. "Who are you fooling?" she said. The Doctor looked away with another halfhearted shrug, mumbling something incoherent under her breath. "I may not know that much about humanoids, but I can tell that you're not, like, one of the violent ones."

The Doctor grimaced, then attempted a smile. "You're right. I'm not. I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is my- my friend, Diana."

The girl waved her claw at us. "I'm Ali."

"Pleased to meet you, Ali," said the Doctor.

"Hi," I added.

Ali looked at the Doctor, her four eyes narrowed with her head titled to one side. "You're a trickster, Doctor, not a warrior."

"Right again," the Time Lady laughed. "And something tells me I can't trick you."

She sounded odd, like she felt defeated or worn out. She hadn't sounded like a minute ago.

"No, you can't."

"So it's a stalemate?"

Ali put her hand to a brown pouch that rested at the bottom of her torso. "Let's trade," she suggested.

The Doctor released my hand so she could sit down on a boulder just across from Ali. She propped one foot up on her opposite knee and started pulling her shoes and socks off. _A swim? Right now?_

"I've got the - what do you call it? Our little silver ball that weighs nearly as much as that boulder you're sitting on?"

The Doctor chuckled as she rolled up the legs of her trousers. "Let's call it an orb, shall we?"

Ali nodded, readjusting herself so she was settled on the ground with her legs braced on either side of her. "Alright, _I've_ got the orb,' said Ali. "What can you offer me?"

"What do you want?" the Doctor asked, resting her elbows on her knees.

"Information."

"Go on, then. I'll answer any question you like."

Ali's fingers tapped rhythmically against her claw. "What was that thing?" she said. "That giant thing? Those two giant things?"

I nodded, looking from Ali to the Doctor with my brows raised, saying nothing but obviously as curious as the alien to know what was going on. The Doctor avoided both of us and simply stared at a point on the ground between her bare feet. She stayed quiet for a minute or two as the wheels in her mind began to turn.

"He- … It," she said, sighing as she tried to find the proper words, "is a Starman. A star eater. He can travel through space and time, fueled by the energy he drains from stars. He's pretty much a star himself, in every sense of the word."

"Then the orb is some kind of weapon?" Ali said, scratching her chin with the tip of her claw.

The Doctor paused as she approached the lake, dipping her toe into the water and shivering slightly. She waded in up to her ankles and then glanced over her shoulder. "What makes you say that?" she wondered.

Ali frowned. "You were holding it. The orb. I saw a flash in the sky. Why else would you want it back so badly? And why couldn't you tell me what it was? I'm thinking it's because you're not supposed to have it. It's not yours." She paused to stand and stretch her legs while the Doctor waded in further, the water coming up to her knees and soaking the bottom of her jeans. "I think you stole it."

Humming softly as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets again. In the shimmering moonlight, I could see her lips quirk up into a smile that was more genuine than any of the others she'd tried in the last few minutes. "You're very clever, aren't you, Ali?"

"So I'm told," she said cheekily.

The smile dropped and the Time Lady's voice hardened. "Where's the orb?"

"Doctor!" I interjected, stepping forward a bit in protest.

Her gaze flicked to me and I saw the determined glint in her eyes. She set her jaw. "You don't know what's at stake," she told me. "I need that orb. To save _your_ planet, Diana."

My face heated up as if it were on fire and I turned away, a tiny spark of anger flaring up inside me after being so clearly chastised like a petulant child. I focused my eyes on the grass and grabbed onto a few blades between my toes. It wasn't as cold as I'd first thought.

"That's a spaceship, isn't it?" Ali said after a few moments.

I could hear the Doctor moving through the water. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well you're a traveller, aren't you?"

"You could say that," the Doctor replied, a hint of a smile in her voice.

Ali sighed and scraped her pointed legs across the ground. "I'd kill to travel. This planet- we get travelers from everywhere."

"It's in a terminus galaxy. It's a jumping off point for a lot of places."

"Exactly. That's why the Starman came here, isn't it?" I smiled despite my frustration. Ali was smart and she was persistent, much more persistent than I usually was. "He was on his way somewhere else, and you followed him here. You said so. Halfway across the universe. So you must have got here somehow. And I don't think you came on a Virgo craft; a slow, unreliable space bus, not if you were chasing something. So you must have your own ship."

The Doctor laughed. "You're a regular Sherlock Holmes, aren't you?"

"A Sherlock what?"

"Never mind. Just someone from that other planet I'm trying to save. Now if you're done showing off, give me the orb and I'll be out of your life."

I heard Ali's legs scramble over the pebbles. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw that the Doctor had come out of the lake and approached the other alien. But Ali had backed away from her, looking somewhat alarmed. I didn't like the way the Doctor was behaving, trying to intimidate a girl into giving her what she wanted.

"You're always in such a hurry, aren't you?" Ali said, all four eyes blinking nervously. "And you're in a real big hurry to get away now, so you wouldn't want to be far from your ship. That box wasn't here before and it's very much not from round here, like the two of you. So it stands to reason that it must be your ship." She cast the TARDIS a thoughtful glance. "It doesn't look nearly big enough to travel through space, though, so it must be some kind of an illusion, bigger than it looks. Or maybe it exists partly outside of space and time." _No way. She figured it out on her own?_ "That makes it bigger on the inside-."

Ali's eyes widened and her mouth fell open. "Oh, my days," she breathed. "It's a TARDIS. You've got a TARDIS."

The Doctor scratched the back of her neck and tried to look casual. "I really, really don't know what you're talking about," she said.

Ali scurried over to the ship with wide, excited eyes and it was only mildly terrifying. "Yes, you do," she countered. "We learned about them in school! In science, you know, _theoretically_ , that they could exist. I never believed they were real, though. I wanted to. I _so_ wanted to. But I never did" She flashed the Doctor and I a toothy grin. "Until now. This is so cool!"

The Doctor had gathered her shoes and socks, and trailed after Ali. "On the other hand, it could just be a big blue box," she suggested, leaning up against the ship with her arms folded over her chest.

But Ali was having none of it. She looked excitedly between the Doctor and I. "You must both be Time Lords! I mean, you fit the part perfectly. Well, the Doctor does, at least. You look like a human, but you're not human. You're pretty smug and you think you're the carp's whiskers-"

"Is there anything you don't know, Ali?"

She beamed and shook her head. "Not really. We also learned about Time Lords at school. In history, ancient history. We were told the Time Lords had all died out a long time ago. But here you are!"

The semi smug expression on the Doctor's face had melted away by then and she reached out to touch Ali's claw. Her eyes were pleading. "Ali," she whispered, "please. I need that orb. Time is running out."

"So take me with you."

The Doctor drew back her hand. "I can't do that."

"I'll give you the orb if you take me with you?"

"No."

"Doctor, why not?" I asked, finally joining the pair by the TARDIS. "She wants to travel and she'll give you the orb thing, whatever it is."

"No. It's way too dangerous where we're going. I don't even want to bring you along, not when you're still so early. But I can't just leave you here."

I furrowed my brows. "Gee, thanks," I muttered.

Ali tugged on the Time Lady's jacket with her claw. "Oh, come on, Doctor! You're going to save your favorite planet. You're going to rescue a whole race! What does my one life matter compared to all theirs?"

"Low blow," I tsked.

The Doctor shot me a glare. "Ali, you can't ask this of me. I'm already putting Diana's life in danger, I can't-"

"You'll need some help, won't you? I could help while Diana stays in the TARDIS, if that's what you want. Please?"

The Time Lady sighed, leaning up against the TARDIS as she thought in silence. Finally, she looked up and smiled. "I can't get rid of you, can I? Alright." She pulled a key out from her jacket and pushed open the doors. "Ladies first, Ali."

The alien grinned and rushed inside the TARDIS, her legs clattering against the grating. I shot the Doctor a confused look as I followed her inside. "Um, aren't you a lady?" I asked.

"Nonbinary, love," she said, patting me on the shoulder and then stepping past me.

I stood on the ramp for a second. "Okay, but-." The Doctor had already gone up to the console and started typing away at the keyboard. "Pronouns?" I muttered under my breath.

Ali's mouth was agape as she stared up at the time rotor. She turned in a full circle, eyes alight with wonder, and then looked back at the Doctor. "Where are we going?"

"The planet's called Earth," the Doctor said. "Where humans first came from. Long way back."

"I've heard of it."

The Doctor grinned. "That doesn't surprise me, Little Miss A-Star." She called me over and gesturing vaguely to the console. "I've already set the coordinates in. Could you-"

"I know."

I quickly scanned the console, knowing immediately what specific buttons and levers to handle since we were planet jumping, galaxy jumping, _and_ time jumping. The Doctor took the half of the console by the scanner while I took the other half, moving from one panel to the next as certain dials had to be adjusted.

A few moments later, the light turbulence evened out and the Doctor and I could relax while the TARDIS did the rest of the work.

She leaned against the console, arms crossed over her chest as I sat down on the jumpseat. She raised her eyebrows at Ali, then at me. "I suppose you'll want an explain, then?" Ali and I both nodded. "I was on Earth, trying to save the old place again. And there was this thing, this creature. Call it what you want- Well, actually it's usually called a Nestene Consciousness. Just another bully, another demigod like the Starman wanting to feed off the planet and drain it dry. I was trying to find it and put a sock in it, and I was helped by a girl. She was probably about your age. A lot like you in many ways."

Ali settled down, her legs splayed out around her again. "What was her name?"

"Rose. Rose Tyler." The Doctor smiled and I sat up a little straighter, eager to hear more about the shop girl I had always admired.

"A human girl?" Ali asked.

"Yeah. The only type they had on the planet back then," she laughed. "You see, in that time and in that corner of the universe, space travel hadn't really taken off just yet. So there were only native creatures on the planet and the humans were the only halfway sentient ones. Them and meerkats."

"Hey!" I interjected. "I'm human too, stupid."

"You're human?" Ali asked.

"Um, yeah."

She tilted her head to the side as she looked at me. "You seem different from the other humans I've met."

I half smiled. "Thank you?"

Ali glanced at the Doctor then and rested against the railing. "Tell me about Rose Tyler."

The Doctor checked something on the scanner, grinned, and then pushed off of the console. "Rose Tyler," she said softly. "She was funny and tough and clever and resourceful. She saved me, and she saved her boyfriend Mickey, and she saved the whole damned planet."

" _Oh_ , you're in love," Ali teased.

I leaned back against the jumpseat with smirk, watching the Doctor try to explain herself. Her smile faltered. "No, don't make that mistake, Ali. Let's just say she was good company. And I-… I like company."

"It must be difficult for you, then. Living as long as you do."

The Doctor shrugged. "I've had many companions in my life. They come and, inevitably, they go." She spared me a glance. "But without them?" She trailed off, her chin falling to her chest as the ghost of her smile faded away completely.

"You're the last lonely Time Lord," Ali guessed.

"What is it with teenage girls, anyway?" said the Doctor, a too lighthearted tone to her voice. "Always digging. When I met Rose, I'd only recently regenerated. I'm sure you know all about regeneration. You've probably got a diploma in it," she joked. "I was feeling a bit like a soft-shell crab, waiting for my new shell to harden, if you'll pardon the analogy. I was still finding my feet. I thought: new body, new start, new companion."

"So what happened?" Ali wondered. "Did you ask her?"

"I did. And she turned me down." The Time Lady shrugged. "I'd come on too strong, I guess, played my cards too soon. As I say, I was still adjusting to the regeneration. Not quite calibrated. She just looked at me.

"She's got a big heart," she continued. "And that's why she couldn't come. Because she cared more about what she'd have to leave behind than what I could offer her. Her family, her boyfriend, her life. I couldn't argue with that. I couldn't expect her to drop everything and go gallivanting off with a perfect stranger in search of adventure."

"Don't you normally expect that?" I asked, almost exactly as Ali said, "Are you saying I don't have a big heart?"

The Doctor looked quickly between us. "Not at all, Ali." Then her impossibly big eyes settled on me and she sighed. "I suppose I do. But not this time."

Ali stood then, drawing mine and the Doctor's attention. "You think I don't care, don't you?" she snapped.

"No, I didn't say that. And I didn't mean that, either," the Doctor explained. "I can land you right back on Karkinos a second after we left. Nobody will ever know. I didn't have time to tell Rose that."

"I know you didn't really want me to come with you, though," Ali countered.

"Well, I didn't have much of a choice, did I? But you're here now, aren't you? So stop your whingeing."

Ali seemed lost in thought. She timidly approached the console, looking up at the time rotor and trailing her human hand over one of the panels. "You said you already saved the Earth. Why do you need to go back there?"

"After I said goodbye to Rose, I came in here and started up the engines. Next thing I knew, lights were flashing, alarms were blaring! It was all bells and buzzers. See, the TARDIS is uniquely tuned to sense any problems with the fabric of time, and just as it had alerted me to the presence of the Nestene Consciousness in a place called London back in Rose's time, now it was alerting me to a very similar problem somewhere else on the planet, a few thousand years earlier."

"The Starman?" Ali wondered.

The Doctor beamed. "Give the girl a big round of applause. They're dangerous entities, born when stars collapse, when they become black holes and white dwarfs and red dwarfs and wormholes, or whatever you call them in your neck of the intergalactic woods. When they collapse, they alter the shape of space and they alter the shape of time, and sometimes a Starman is created. A cosmic being with a primitive consciousness. And if you're not careful, they can escape from their own time and go trampling through the universe, wiping it clean and rewriting history, rewriting the laws of science itself. I suppose you could call them gods, if you wanted." She paused and rested a hand on the console. "It was always one of the duties of the Time Lords to police the universe and snap the cuffs on them when they popped up where they shouldn't. They're nasty things, you know. Gods. they don't much care for anyone other than themselves. Don't like any competition. _So_ , off I went to try to head this Starman off at the pass."

Ali's claw rested against the pouch strapped across her torso. "Why did it look like there were two of them?"

"That's 'cause it was existing in several different dimensions at once. Now, that orb," she extended her hand in Ali's direction, waiting for her to hand it over. Ali took it out with her human hand and dropped it in the Doctor's open palm. "Thank you. The orb was created in a very similar way to the Starman. It has the power of a collapsed star in it. It was made by a very clever, and not very nice, character called the Exalted Holgoroth of All Tagkhanastria. And he was no better than the bloody Starman! He was only really interested in using the orb to build a space empire." The Doctor smirked as she tossed the orb in the air. "So I thought I'd kill two pterodactyls with one stone. I paid a visit to the Holgoroth, pretending to be an emissary from the Crab Nebula, and I stole his orb right out from under his nose. And then I went after the Starman and got to him before he reached Earth. In the process he nearly killed me."

I jolted forward in my seat. "Wait, what?"

"Remember how I told you the TARDIS was supposed to come after me after I took care of Castor and Pollux?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the orb sent it back into space. And I happened to be stuck with it. So when the TARDIS took a few seconds longer than expected, I got very close to swelling up into a big Doctor balloon before my lungs exploded and I got a horrible sunburn."

"Wouldn't you just explode or something?" I asked.

The Doctor shook her head. "That's a common misconception, so no. But that's not important. What _is_ important is that I had superior firepower!" She tossed the orb into the air again, watching as it seemed to freeze in the air for a split second before falling into her hand again. "And I knocked him for six! Well, into the twenty-sixth dimension anyway."

"Please don't make sports jokes," I groaned.

The Doctor grinned. "He's safe there for a while. Can't do much damage. Space and time's always been a right mess in there. Might even sort things out a bit. Who knows?"

"So if you flipped him into another dimension, why are we going back to Earth?" Ali asked.

"It seems that what happened on your planet with the Starman sent ripples spreading out across the universe. It's always the same. You push one problem under the carpet and another one pops out on the other side. Cause and effect, unforeseen consequences, the butterfly's wing."

"A what wing?"

The Doctor waved her hand dismissively. "Just an expression, Ali. In a nutshell, there's another Starman, a worse one and far more powerful one, heading for Earth and I need to stop it. It might already be there."

"Can't you just do what you did with the twins and grab it before it arrives?"

"No. That's the thing. Me and this new Starman exist in the same time stream. A side-effect of using the orb. Unforeseen consequences. Turns out the magic orb is not as special as the Holgoroth claimed. Should have read the small print. 'This item may not work as advertised!' So until I send this new Starman packing, the two of us have a time tag on us. We're linked."

The TARDIS jolted and nearly threw me out of my seat. I grabbed onto the railing to steady myself while the Doctor tried to smooth out the rest of the ride.

"So now, " she shouted over the turbulence, "we're landing on Earth two thousand years before the birth of Christ!"

Ali was holding onto the railing for dear life, her eyes wide and worried. " _Who?_ "

The Doctor held onto the console and braced her legs against the floor as the turbulence began to lessen. "He was a bit like Sherlock Holmes. Knew the answers to everything. Very good at solving mysteries. Some humans use him to measure time."

 _Well that's one way of looking at it,_ I thought to myself.

"And whereabouts on Earth?" Ali asked after regaining her balance.

The Doctor yanked on the dematerialization lever and the ship shuddered to a stop. "A place called Babylon. Lovely little spot, but very hot in the summer."

"Doctor?" Ali called as the Time Lady bolted down the ramp. "One last thing?"

She halted by the door, hands poised by the handles. "Make it quick."

"This new Starman, what will it look like?"

The Doctor made a little sound in the back of her throat. "Huh. Good question."

"Will it look like the twins?"

"Probably not. It depends on what planets it's absorbed. It could look like anything – a lizard, a goat, a sea urchin, a giant amorphous blob. One thing I can tell you, though, is it probably won't look very nice."

When the Doctor opened the TARDIS doors with Ali and I starting after him, I realized then that I still hadn't put any shoes on. _Why didn't I do that after my shower?_ I also realized that my phone and journal had slid across the floor, almost completely on the other end of the room. I quickly picked my things up, slipping the phone into my pocket, and tossed the journal onto the jumpseat.

I could just see the Doctor through the semi open doorway, with Ali hiding behind the closed half. I moved to the top of the ramp and shot Ali a confused look. She held a finger to her mouth and then went back to listening to the Doctor.

"I need to speak to someone in charge," she said as I stepped quietly down the ramp. "It's rather urgent."

"Who are you?" someone asked. "Are you a messenger from the gods?"

The Doctor paused for a moment. "You could say that. Let's say that I _am_ a messenger from the gods." I could just make out the sound of feet pattering on hard ground and then the Doctor shouted, "No! Don't go in there!"

A person appeared in the doorway then, a man with dark skin and a bronze colored helmet. Ali's clawed arm shot out in front of me and then one of her antennae lashed out and whipped across the man's neck. The man started shaking like he was having a seizure and then he stumbled backwards, out of the doorway, and collapsed. His shield and spear clattered against each other when he dropped them.

"Stand back," Ali said to me, gently pushing me back with her claw.

"Diana! Ali!" the Doctor shouted. He sounded like he was struggling against something. I tried to push Ali's arm aside, but it was enormous and she was incredibly strong. "Don't move, both of you! Shut the door and wait for me. I'll be alright!"

I tried to reach around Ali's claw for the door. "Doctor!"

"I'll be alright!" she called.

Ali slammed the door shut with her human hand and then dropped her claw. I stumbled back in shock, my mind still reeling. When Ali started towards me, I instinctively backed away and cast her a wary glance.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "While you were searching for your things, the Doctor told me to protect you and the TARDIS."

My eyes shot to her two antennae, the one on her right shoulder still partially unfurled. "What is that?" I asked.

"It's an antenode. They lash out and attack enemies when we're in battle. It's a form of protection. I promise I won't hurt you."

I moved towards the jumpseat, never letting my eyes stray to anything other than Ali. "Did you kill him?"

"It was instinctual. And I was trying to keep us both safe."

I nodded. "Okay."

Ali claw snapped open and closed, her human fingers tapping nervously against her chin. "Is there a way for us to see what's happening to the Doctor?" she asked, looking between the doors and I.

I looked at the console. "Yes. I should be able to find her on the scanner."

Turning the external camera on was easily done with the press of a button. Adding sound and clarifying the image was just a button press and a dial turn away. The image on the screen showed the Doctor surrounded by men with helmets, spears, and shields. In front of the Doctor was a middle aged man with skin a few shades lighter than the Doctor's, wearing decorative robes and a very fancy looking staff.

"Liar!" he shouted. "You are not an emissary of the gods! You are a mortal, like the rest of us. You are a spy and the law of Hammurabi clearly states what must be done to spies!"

I felt my heart sink. "Oh, no."

The Doctor stepped forward to try and defend herself, but two soldiers grabbed onto her arms and restrained her. She tried proving that she was a messenger from the gods and then said that everyone was in serious danger, but no one would listen to her. The man ordered to have her taken away and the Doctor was quickly dragged out of sight.

"What will they do to her?" Ali asked.

I shook my head. "I-I don't know."

* * *

 **A/N: So I found an ebook with the Ninth Doctor several months ago and I really loved the story, so I thought it would be fun to put it in this story. So here it is! The original book was written by Charlie Higson and it's very, very good.**

 **I hope you guys liked this chapter! Don't forget to leave a review and let me know what you think!**


	6. The Beast of Babylon: Part 2

"Do you think they'll kill her?"

I stared at the scanner, even though the Doctor was long gone. Several soldiers had stayed behind and were looking up at the TARDIS, talking amongst themselves. "I don't know. Maybe."

Ali picked up the orb, which the Doctor had left behind in a divot on one of the panels. "We have to do something," she said. "Even if they don't kill her, she doesn't have this. She won't be able to fight back against the Starman when it shows up."

One of the soldiers beat the end of his spear against the TARDIS doors. The ship hummed and I could tell she didn't appreciate being poked by stupid little humans. The soldier thumped the doors again, harder this time, and I bristled slightly.

"We can't get past them," I told Ali. "Even if we wanted to."

She frowned. "We could."

"How?"

Another soldier had joined the first and the two started ramming into the doors with their spears. Ali growled softly and I leaned away from her. Her human hand had balled into a fist and her antenodes were quivering.

"Ali?"

"They're making me mad," she said. "And they wouldn't like me when I'm mad. Believe me."

The soldiers banged their spears against the doors again and again, and Ali grew more and more upset. One of the soldiers laughed then and said something obscene about the Doctor, something that made me consider punching him in the throat. Ali growled again and stared at the doors, her claw clicking as it opened and closed.

"You might want to stay back," she said. "It's best not to get too close to me when I lose myself to my battle rage."

Ali approached the doors slowly, her head tilted to the side as if she was listening. I was expecting her to burst out of the ship and rip the soldiers apart. Instead she waited. There was a pause between beats and then she flung the door open. One of the soldiers stumbled inside, obviously not expecting the door to just give way. Ali kicked him swiftly in the chest with one of her strange, crab-beetle legs, and the man went flying out of sight. She scrambled outside after him and all I could hear were the remaining men's terrified screams.

I spun around to watch the scanner. Ali's antenodes were reeling back into her shoulders and curling up, while two men lay at her feet. I couldn't tell if they were dead or not, but I really hoped they weren't. There were still six soldiers left and although Ali was very fierce and intimidating, I doubted she would be able to fight back against all of them.

She seemed frozen in thought, most likely calculating the best way to attack. One of the soldiers stepped forward and threw his spear at her. "Ali, no!" I screamed, racing towards the doors. But the spear only bounced off of her shell and fell to the ground, split in two. Something rumbled deep inside her chest and Ali looked from the spear to the soldier who had thrown it. I stood in the doorway and watched as Ali raced forward. He screamed and fell beneath her, clawing at anything within reach. Her body was large enough to block the soldier from view, so I couldn't see what she was doing. But I knew I didn't want to see it.

The man stopped screaming a few seconds later. The remaining soldiers stared at Ali in terror, but charged towards her with their spears readied. She hissed and lashed out with a bloody claw, snapping the neck of one soldier and then sweeping two others aside with his body. The remaining three soldiers all lunged at her with their spears, but again they snapped in half and were absolutely useless.

Ali turned and stabbed one man in the stomach with her claw. He fell to the ground with his stomach ripped open and I had to turn away. I clung to the railing with my eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the image of the man's face as he died. I had never seen someone die before.

Four screams and several minutes later, I heard Ali tap against the TARDIS door. "We can go now," she said. "You should grab the orb."

I nodded and started up the ramp again, making sure I didn't look outside. Once back at the doorway, I kept my gaze on the ground and extended my arm. "Here." She took it with her human hand, her fingers spattered with blood.

"Are you alright?"

I nodded again. "Yeah, I'm- I'm fine. I've just, um, I've never seen someone die before." My eyes began to well with tears and I quickly turned away. My voice cracked slightly. "It's a little too much for me… right now."

Ali sighed. "I know that to you, I probably seem like a monster." I looked back at her, about to protest, but the words died in my throat when I saw her four beady eyes blinking at me, blood spattered across her pale torso. "But I was only doing what I was raised to do. In Karkinian culture, the female is the deadliest during battle. When the safety of the group is threatened, we fight back with the strength of twenty men and we don't stop until the threat is entirely eliminated. And you, the Doctor, and the TARDIS are my group right now."

"I understand." I wiped away my tears and attempted a smile. "And you're not a monster. I would never think you are."

"You can stay here if you want, but the Doctor needs our help. If you want to come, you can ride on my back. It'll be faster that way." I stupidly let my eyes drift to the bodies of the soldiers strewn across the dirt. It was suddenly difficult to breathe and I didn't want to, but a part of me couldn't stop staring. "Diana." I blinked and looked back at Ali. She was smiling at me and the multiple rows of teeth shone brightly in the sunlight. "Come on. The Doctor needs both of us."

Riding on Ali's back wasn't dissimilar to riding a horse. Except, horses didn't have claw-like legs and a crab-like exoskeleton. I sat right where her torso met the lower half of her body. It was sort of shaped the way an ant's body is, with a junction between the front half and the back half.

The TARDIS had parked itself in a stone courtyard, but I tried not to get a very close look at it since there seemed to be blood everywhere. The entrance of the courtyard was marked by two stone pillars with an opening between them and Ali scattered through, bringing us into a large, but surprisingly empty city. There were stone and clay buildings all around with little carts and pottery containers filling up the streets. But there wasn't anybody around.

"Where is everyone?" said Ali.

"I don't know. Day off, maybe?"

She laughed humorlessly. "Somehow, I don't think that's it."

There was a street that led parallel to the courtyard we had just exited and then another one perpendicular to it. The second street led straight ahead and at the very end of it was an enormous stone structure. There were dozens of desert plants and shrubs decorating the base of the structure and some of the stones had been painted gold and blue.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Nothing else in this city is as large or elaborately decorated, though. It has to be important. Do you think they've taken the Doctor there?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"You should probably hold on tight," Ali suggested. "I'm the fastest one in my family."

She shot off like a rocket, hardly giving me any time to wrap my limbs around her and hold on for dear life. I'd never gone much faster than a trot or a brief canter on a horse, but something told me that Ali was going much faster than any horse on Earth could gallop. I leaned forward and clung to her back, my face buried between her shoulder blades.

Her body jolted and I yelped in surprise, tightening my grip around her torso as I started to slide backwards. "What hap-?" I stopped myself mid sentence when I realized, upon opening my eyes, that Ali had leapt onto the stone wall of the structure and was starting to climb.

"Hold on!"

I wrapped my legs around her as tightly as I could manage and buried my head in her back again. "I don't do heights," I muttered. "Heights are not good."

"So don't look down."

It wasn't a very long distance to the top of the structure, but the ride up seemed to last for an eternity. The sun was beating down on us and even though I was only wearing one layer of clothes, I was already sweating and starting to feel miserable. Hot weather was never my favorite kind. Ali's body shuddered and then fell forwards at one point, making me yell as my brain momentarily thought we were falling.

"Shut up!" she hissed.

I opened my eyes and saw that we were inside the structure. Ali had climbed inside through a large window and although no one was around, my shout was certain to attract more soldiers or guards. I slid off of Ali's back with wobbling, shaking legs and stumbled over to the wall for support.

"Stay here," she said.

"What? Where are you- Oh."

Across the room was a very tall, very muscular man with a shield, spear, and a sheathed sword strapped to his waist. He was standing in front of a balcony and he eyes were fixed on Ali. He dropped his spear and drew his sword, fear and anger shining in his eyes.

"Ali, be careful!" I said worriedly.

She lunged forward, her claw arching through the air. The man shouted and swung his sword at Ali's arm, but it cracked against her claw. She growled, breaking the sword in half like it was a twig and then flinging it across the room without another thought. The man shoved into her torso with his shield. Ali swept the shield aside as her claw closed around his neck. She started towards the balcony and dangled his body over the edge, then dropped him.

The man screamed and then fell silent a moment later. I rushed to Ali's side, resting a hand on her claw. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head. "No. But look." She pointed with her human hand to a courtyard far below us, where it seemed the entire city had gathered. In the center of the courtyard was the Doctor, bent over a large boulder with two soldiers holding her down. "The Doctor."

A loud crack of thunder sounded, drawing everyone's attention. Across the courtyard was the empty desert, where a large storm was starting to brew. Dust and sand was starting to form a giant tornado and above it, the clouds had gathered and turned dark while flashing occasionally with a blot of lightning. Something started to form in the darkened mass of sand and wind.

"Oh, my god," I breathed.

The thing that had appeared was a giant creature, more horrifying than anything else I had ever seen. It seemed to have the head of a goat, judging by the enormous horns that sprouted from its skull. Two lizard arms supported its weight, while its torso gradually melted into that of a rotten fish, and two silver wings dropped over its shoulders.

A shout sounded behind us and Ali and I turned to see a group of soldiers by the doorway. Ali ordered for me to get on her back. She climbed from the balcony to the wall, the pointed tips of her legs fitting between the stones and securing her in place. One of the soldiers ran up to the balcony, his spear raised and aimed directly at us, but then one of Ali's antenodes struck him in the chest and he toppled over the balcony.

"Hold on!" Ali yelled over the chaos in the courtyard below. I wrapped my arms around her and tried not to scream when she began scrambling down the wall. "Lean back! You're throwing me off!"

I tightened my legs around her middle and leaned back slightly, not daring to release my hold on her back. When that wasn't enough, I grabbed onto one of her legs instead and latched onto her left antenode with my other hand. We were probably about twenty feet off the ground when Ali slipped and we both fell.

I landed on top of her and then rolled off, my shoulder slamming into the ground first and then my head bouncing off the dirt. Ali was by my side several seconds later, looming over me with a worried expression. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine." Behind her, the terrifying Starman was advancing on the city and spewing water from its mouth as it snarled. "You have to get the orb to the Doctor!"

"What about you?"

"I don't wanna be anywhere near that thing! I'll be fine. Just go help her!"

Ali hesitated for a moment before nodding and then scampering off. I managed to sit up on my own and look at my limbs to see if anything was broken. My shoulder was hurting badly enough that I couldn't really move it, but nothing broken was jutting out of my skin and I presumed I was fine. The structure wall was a few yards behind me, so I struggled to my feet and hobbled over. I'd forgotten to put shoes on, again, so my feet were dusty and grimy as I sat down with my back to the wall.

The courtyard was an absolute mess. All the townspeople had fled, running off in a million different directions as the Starman grew closer. The large mass of soldiers that remained had stood their ground and were ready to attack, but I spotted a few of them turn and desert their compatriots. _I don't blame you._

I saw Ali appear somewhere in the ranks, the Doctor, sitting on her back with the orb in her hand. As they charged past the soldiers, many of them fell to their knees and began wailing and praying in desperation. The goat headed Starman crashed through the wall of the courtyard with a screech and then gobbled down a portion of the terrified soldiers. Just behind the creature, looming below the darkened storm clouds, was another Starman in the shape of two men.

"Oh, fuck." I got to my feet and leaned against the wall, my legs trembling as the first Starman crawled further into the courtyard. The twins, Castor and Pollux, roared in the distance and started towards the courtyard. "Nope. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

I started running. My shoulder was still aching and sent burning pain through my body every time I took a step, but I had to put as much distance as possible between myself and the Starmen. I wasn't willing to just sit and wait for them to come eat me. If I could get to the TARDIS, I knew I would be safe no matter what happened.

I reached the edge of the wall and stopped, turning to search for Ali and the Doctor amongst the crowd of screaming men. Then I spotted something shining as it trailed up the side of the Starman. I squinted and adjusted my glasses, unintentionally making them go sonic. They zoomed in on the shining light and showed me the Doctor astride Ali, racing up the monster's body.

I grasped my necklace, my arm protesting to the sudden movement. Ali was on the creature's shoulder when it suddenly turned and looked at her. Panic gripped my heart as the creature's horrible, dead eyes narrowed and it roared angrily. The Doctor opened his mouth and seemed to shout something, then threw the light into the Starman's mouth.

There was silence. And then a wave of hot air blasted through the courtyard and knocked me over. Silver flakes began to rain from the sky as I pushed myself up. The Starmen were gone. All that remained was the silver rain. Then I realized that I couldn't see Ali or the Doctor anywhere.

* * *

" _Ow!_ "

I groaned as pain radiated throughout my entire shoulder and down my arm. The Doctor's fingers had probed a little too roughly during her examination. She lightly patted my hand and smiled at me. "No bones broken. Just a sore shoulder. Nothing a few pills can't fix."

The Doctor's eyes didn't quite focus on me. "Are you okay?" I asked.

She nodded, then grimaced. "Fine."

"You sure? You don't look fine."

"Just a headache," she said. "I landed pretty hard."

"Then you should lie down and rest."

The Time Lady waved her hand dismissively. "Please. I'll be fine, love. Besides, you had quite a fall yourself."

I grumbled and shook my head, turning my attention to Ali as she slept soundly on the ground several paces away. "Don't remind me."

The Doctor leaned back against the palm tree we had sat under, her eyes fluttering shut as a breeze drifted by. Ali sighed softly and a tiny cloud of dust and sand puffed up before her face. I looked back at the Doctor and noticed the smile tugging at her lips. I smiled too and shuffled sideways a few inches, putting some space between us so I could rest my back comfortably against the tree trunk.

"Doctor?"

I opened my eyes to see five men standing over us and I inhaled sharply, sitting up completely. The tallest man looked to be in his thirties or forties. His skin was decorated with bronze and gold jewelry, and he wore a bronze helmet. One of the other men I recognized as the one who called the Doctor a liar and a false messenger from the gods. The other three I didn't recognize.

"I am sorry I doubted you," said the tallest man. I realized then he was probably the king, since he wore finer clothes than all the others. "You were right, Doctor."

The Doctor scoffed. "I usually am. Now go away. I'm trying to sleep."

The man who had ordered her to be dragged away spoke next. "We must write about you in our histories. What is your name?"

Sighing heavily, the Doctor brushed a hand across her forehead and wiped away her sweat. "You go through Marduk's fifty names, and you'll probably find mine in there somewhere."

"Marduk? Who is Marduk?"

"Get away from him!" Ali had woken up and was scurrying over, rage written plainly across her face.

The Doctor grimaced. "Ali, no-."

She took one of the men in her grasp, her claw tightening around his neck and lifting him off the ground. "You would have killed him," she growled. "You and all the others! Now see how you like it."

She dropped the man and then swiped the others away with a single wave of her arm. She advanced on the first man, the man with the gold and bronze jewelry, and snarled in his face as he fell to his knees.

The Doctor struggled to her feet and reached out for Ali, protesting and begging her to stop. "Ali, stop. You've done enough. You have to s-stop…" Her voice trailed off and then she collapsed.

"Doctor!" I hurried to her side and leaned over her, trying to understand what was wrong. "Doctor?"

She groaned and fell onto her back. " 's time to go home," she mumbled before passing out.

I grabbed hold of her shoulder. "Doctor! Doctor, wake up!"

Ali knelt in front of the Time Lady and, without even exerting herself, lifted her up in her arms. "Get on my back, Diana," she said.

Once back at the TARDIS, I opened the doors with a snap of my fingers and Ali hurried inside. She nudged my journal off of the jumpseat and placed the Doctor on the cushions. I worriedly brushed my hand along the Doctor's forehead.

"The fall must have hurt her more than she let on," Ali said.

"Do you think she has a concussion?"

Ali hummed. "Probably. But I don't know how to treat a _Time Lord_ concussion. Do you?"

I pushed my glasses further up my nose and froze when they turned black. "I forgot," I whispered. I switched them back to regular lenses and then pinched the corner like Twelve had demonstrated. I quickly looked up and down the Doctor's body, scanning for any injuries. "I was right. She has a concussion, but everything else seems to be fine."

"So how do we treat her?"

I repeated Ali's question in my mind, still pinching the glasses and hoping that I was using them correctly. A page of text appeared in my lenses, explaining how quickly the concussion would heal and what medication I could give her to lessen the pain. I turned to the console and typed out what kind of medication I needed, pushing my glasses up when I needed to see the keyboard and replacing them to check the spelling. The TARDIS whirred and just below the scanner, a little panel the size of my journal opened up and a bottle appeared. I cleared the text from my glasses and then returned to the Doctor's side, pushing a pill past her lips.

"Is that it?"

"I think so. I think if we just let her rest, she should be fine."

Ali leaned against the railing by the end of the jumpseat. "How did you know how to do that?" she asked.

I gestured to my glasses with a shrug. "The Doctor gave these to me. Apparently they connect to the wifi, so I can look things up if I need to."

"Wifi?"

"Um… It's like a-an electric library, sort of."

Ali hummed. "So now we wait?"

"So now we wait."

As it turns out, we didn't have to wait much longer than a few minutes. The Doctor shot up all of a sudden, looking around and rubbing her eyes. "One of you gave me medicine," she said. "What did you give me?"

I handed her the bottle. "The TARDIS gave me these for your concussion."

She smiled and slipped the bottle into her coat pocket. "Good old girl."

"Are you alright now?" Ali asked.

The Doctor's face hardened and she turned stiffly in Ali's direction. "I am. Those men won't be, though."

Ali looked away. "I'm sorry," she sighed, "but they deserved their punishment. I should have killed them all."

"I know you only did what you thought was right. But this is why I usually take humans as my companions. They have- well, they have humanity. Not all of them, I'll give you that, but the ones I choose." Ali stared unblinkingly at the Time Lady. "That's why I was reluctant to take you in the first place. Not for your own safety, but for others. You Karkinians have a scary reputation, particularly the females, and having seen you in action I can see why. Remember what I told you when we first spoke, Ali? I'm not a warrior unless I have to be. It's not my way."

She swallowed and I could see the anger already burning in her eyes. "You killed the Starman."

The Doctor shook her head. "I didn't kill him. I simply sent him back to where he can't do any harm."

"But if I hadn't saved you-"

"I've somehow managed to survive for quite a long time without your help."

Ali stood to her full height, her face flushing red with anger as bitterness tainted her voice. "You ungrateful-"

"I'm sorry!" the Doctor interjected, throwing her hands up. "You're right. I'm sorry. You did save me. Without you I probably would've regenerated again and the Starmen probably have eaten the entire planet. So, I will be eternally grateful to you. But your way, Ali, it's too risky. I wouldn't ever be able to go anywhere if I was worried you were going to go into a Karkinian war frenzy every time anyone looked at me funny."

"Doctor, she was only trying to protect you," I said.

"I know."

Ali huffed. "I can't help it-"

"Exactly! That's my point," said the Doctor. "You're from Karkinos. I thought maybe you were different. You are special, I'll give you that, and you're nearly as clever as me. But you're also a warrior. And I can't ask you to change that because that's what you were born to be. And the best place for you right now is back on Karkinos, looking after your family."

Ali settled down and sat on the floor, her fingers drumming quietly atop her claw. She smiled, her teeth shining in the semi green glow of the time rotor. "I gave those humans a fright though, didn't I?" she chuckled. "They won't forget me in a hurry."

The Doctor moved to the console. "They won't ever forget you, Ali. You're a star and you always will be. You'll be _their_ star. They'll name a constellation after you and add you to their zodiac along with the twins and the goat-fish." She smiled too and set in the coordinates for the lake where we had found her. "You're my A-star girl.

Ali was quick to leave the TARDIS after we landed. She hurried outside and looked up at the sky where several moons were situated in a loose arc. The lake looked beautiful and mysterious as it shimmered in the moonlight, and I made a mental note to remember exactly what it looked like. It would fit perfectly in the story I'd started writing back home, long before I ever met the Doctor. _Home…_ But I shook my head and pushed those memories away. I knew that if I thought about home or what I'd lost, I would start crying and I wouldn't stop for a very long time.

"Since Diana helped me fly this time, I can assure you that we've landed only a few minutes after you left," the Doctor said.

A large bird called as it flew down, skimming across the lake's surface before sailing back into the trees along the shore. Ali stood in the mudbank just below the TARDIS and looked at the Doctor. "Where will you go now?" she asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Wherever we're needed, I suppose."

Ali laughed and shook her head. "You are so pompous."

The Doctor grinned. "Yeah, I am, aren't I? Diana and the Doctor, off to save the universe!"

"So you won't be alone?"

"No. Not for a short while, anyways. Diana will leave soon, though. Perhaps in a day or two. Or three."

 _Which you still haven't explained to me,_ I thought in the Doctor's general direction.

"I don't know what you mean, but if you're alone again will you do something for me? That girl you were telling me about? Rose Tyler?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "What about her?"

Ali nudged her with her claw and smiled. "You should try again."

"No, I gave it my best, Ali. This life wasn't for her."

"Oh? I didn't have you down as a quitter, Doctor."

She was trying to goad her into returning for Rose, but it wasn't working as well as she had probably hoped. "It's too late," the Doctor said.

"How can anything be too late? You're a Time Lord!" Ali exclaimed. "I thought time had no meaning in your infinite, immortal, immaterial box of tricks. Too late, indeed. You just get back there!"

The Doctor laughed and shook her head, pushing off of the TARDIS to head back inside. "Ali-"

"No, listen. You go straight back there now and you ask her again. Because I know what it's like to fancy a girl and you definitely fancy her. But you've got to offer her more than just, y'know, _you_. I mean, you're a Time Lord, but you're not all that. Sell it to her!"

"That's why I need a companion, you know. That's why I've had so many of them. To keep my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds. To keep me from myself. It's people like Rose and Di, and crustaceans like you, Ali, who keep me going, who remind me that it's not all over and it's not all about me. I haven't had a new companion in… a very long time. I pushed everyone away." The Doctor sighed and I could see the hurt clouding in her eyes. "My people may have gone, but you have your people and everyone has their own people. And every one of them is precious."

Ali stepped forward and pressed her claw to the Doctor's cheek. She didn't say anything. The Doctor glanced at her claw and looked mildly uncomfortable. "A long time ago, in a body far, far away, I had something like that," she said, twisting her wrist in tiny circles. "Though not on that scale."

"You're very strange, Doctor," Ali teased. "Goodbye."

"This isn't a proper goodbye, Ali. I'll be seeing you."

"Will you?"

"I'm sure I will. When I need you most. When I need a mighty warrior."

Ali turned to me. "Then I suppose I'll see you again, too."

I nodded and spread my arms for a hug. "I hope so, Ali." Her arms wrapped around me and picked me off the floor, pushing me against her torso.

"You'll stay with her, right?" she asked after setting me down.

"I don't have anywhere else to go, so."

She grinned. "It sounds like you both need a companion, then."

* * *

"So, where in all of time and space do you feel like going?" the Doctor asked. I gazed up at the time rotor with one leg tucked underneath me, the jumpseat squeaking with every tiny jolt of turbulence.

"You're not going back for Rose?"

"Why would I? I've got you, haven't I?"

I frowned and scratched a spot behind my ear. "You said- to Ali, you said I was going to leave. What did you mean?"

"You don't know?" I shook my head. "Oh. Right. What did I say to you before you jumped here?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

The Doctor sat down on the jumpseat next to me, her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets again. "Before you met me, were you with a future incarnation or a past one?"

"Future."

"What did I say to you when you start to disappear?"

I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to recall the memories of what felt like another lifetime. I remembered the Doctor - Twelve - giving me my glasses and journal and phone, and I remembered the searing pain that had coursed through my body before I ended up hurtling through the vortex. "You said that I was fading," I said slowly. "I think. But you didn't explain to me what was happening. I-I don't really remember much."

"When you came to this universe" - I shifted uncomfortably - "something happened to you. I don't know what, but because of this thing you can travel through time. Without a time machine. Or a vortex manipulator, or any other appliance you can think of that lets you time travel. I don't know why you can do this or how, but I haven't been able to find a way of controlling it."

"Why would you want to control it?" I asked.

"Oh, no, nothing like that, love," she sighed. "See, you only stick around for a few days at a time. Sometimes it's just a day, sometimes it's two or three or even a week. Every time, it's different. But you show up, you stick around for a bit, and then you disappear."

"And it hurts like that every time?"

The Doctor shook her head. "No, the pain lessens over time. That or you get used to it. You never really told me."

I stared at one of the hundreds of tiny holes in the floor. I was silent for a long time. "Will it ever stop?"

"I don't know."

"So I'll just… keep doing this for the rest of my life?" The Doctor didn't answer. "Will I ever go home?"

My voice cracked and I turned away so the Doctor wouldn't see my tears. The jumpseat creaked as she stood up. She walked past me and picked up the journal that Ali had brushed aside earlier. "Here." That was her answer.

"Thanks."

The Doctor walked over to the console. "Do you want some shoes?" When I didn't reply, she started for the doorway on the opposite end of the room. "I'll go get you some shoes. And snacks. You're- you're probably hungry. I'll be right back."

I waited until I couldn't hear her footsteps before I started crying.

* * *

 **A/N: My thanks to all the reviewers! It makes my day seeing you guys respond to each chapter. In other news, I made a blog on tumblr where I shared the art that inspired this story and little aesthetic picture I've made for each chapter/episode. There's a link on my profile, or you can just add the tumblr dot com bit after _thestoryofdianascott_.**


	7. Call Me Maybe?

**A/N: I've had this saved for months now, then I got distracted by work, and my book, and hobbies. So the ending of this chapter is a little weak and it's shorter than I wanted it to be, but I'm trying to throw myself back into the Doctor's universe with the upcoming arrival of series 10! (Anyone interested in the idea of a Bill/Di romance? #polyamorywins)**

* * *

I was in the middle of a panic attack when the Doctor returned. She dropped everything and sprinted to my side, sliding to a halt as she rested a hand on my shoulder. "Breathe with me, breathe with me," she urged. "Come on. In, out. Nice, deep breaths. In and out."

I wheezed and grabbed onto the edge of her jacket. "I-I-I can't- can't stop," I gasped.

"Yes, you can. Just breathe with me. Can you do that?" I nodded. "Good girl. Now, in and out."

My shoulders were still trembling once I managed to regain my breath. I could feel the panic resting in my chest, weighing down on my lungs and heart as I struggled to keep my breathing even. My cheeks had started to dry and the Doctor swiftly wiped them clean with her thumbs. I looked away and stared at a spot on the floor instead of the Time Lady's worried eyes.

"Are you okay?"

I cleared my throat and managed to nod. "Yeah. I'm fine now," I croaked.

"Perhaps we shouldn't go off on another adventure just yet," she mused.

"Why not?"

The Doctor raised both of her eyebrows. "I don't know that you're ready. But we could go somewhere nice and quiet instead, if you wanted." She retrieved the things she'd dropped on the other end of the room and set them down on the jumpseat. Then she leapt towards the console. "I know! The Eye of Orion. You liked it there the last time I took you. It might do you some good to just relax for a bit."

"Shouldn't you be resting, too?" I asked. "You do still have a concussion."

She waved my comment aside with a brush of her hand. "I'll be fine. A concussion's never stopped me before."

"It probably should."

I glanced at the things the Doctor had dropped on the seat next to me. There was a pair of flats, a bag of crisps, a chocolate muffin, and a bottle of water. I was still hungry, considering I'd never gotten to finish my bagel earlier, and quickly gobbled down the muffin; the water followed soon after. The Doctor turned around when I opened the crisps.

"You've got a smudge," she said, smiling affectionately at me as she gestured to the corner of her mouth. I quickly wiped both sides of my mouth clean with my thumb. "How was the muffin?"

"Fine," I mumbled, a little embarrassed.

The Doctor rested her hip against the console. "So. Eye of Orion?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

* * *

The TARDIS had landed on the top of a grassy hill that overlooked a great valley of rocks, trees, and patches of grass and flowers. The weather was almost cool enough to need a light jacket, but I enjoyed the feeling of the air blowing across my skin and tussling my hair. Behind the TARDIS was a ruined stone building, moss growing over the walls and shattered stones that had crumbled to the ground.

I took my phone out from my back pocket and snapped a few pictures, my mind already playing around with a few story ideas that had sprung up. Once I'd gotten the pictures I wanted, I started down the hill towards a patch of boulders where there was a scattering of dusty pink wildflowers. I snapped another few pictures and then clambered onto one of the smaller rocks, my phone clutched in my right hand as shaded my eyes with the other.

 _Stupid, they can change to sunglasses_ , I reminded myself. The shades switched on with a press to the bridge of my glasses and I smiled. I had already climbed to the top of the largest boulder in the pile when I heard the Doctor call my name. She was at the top of the hill, waving her arm and gesturing for me to come back.

I groaned and started up the slope, pleasantly surprised when the Time Lady met me halfway. "I'll let you go off adventuring if you want," she said, "but I thought you might want these." She handed me my journal, a pen, and a leather bound book. "Just in case you wanted to sit and read or write."

"Thanks."

She grinned. "Of course. If you need me, just give a shout and I'll come running."

At the base of the hill, where the patch of boulders and flowers rested in a mini valley, another hill rose from the ground just a few paces away. I bounded up the next hill, my stupidly weak knees protesting the climb with little creaks and cracks. At the top of that hill I could see a long, silvery stream running through fields and twisting around several other hills and valleys. Before starting towards the river, I turned and took a beautiful photo of the TARDIS standing by herself in the mossy stone ruins. Then I pocketed my phone and raced downhill.

There were a few trees scattered amongst the riverbank, each of them old and bent over the water with chipped bark and pale green leaves. The roots of one tree struggled over the boulders piled at its feet and then fell a short ways from the bank into the river itself. As I leapt onto the tallest rock, about the height of my knees, a little brown butterfly flew out of the branches and fluttered around my head, then landed in my hair. I realized that the blue tint of my hair probably made me look like a giant flower.

The butterfly flew away a minute later, but I managed to get a few semi blurry pictures of it before it disappeared entirely. My phone started buzzing in my hand then and I nearly dropped it in surprise. I was receiving a call from a number I didn't recognize. In fact, there wasn't a number at all. There was just the word ' _Unknown_ ' at the top of the screen where the contact's name should have been.

I hesitantly slid my finger across the screen to answer the call. "Hello?"

"Diana! You're alive!"

I could feel my heart hammering inside my chest. "Who is this?" I asked.

"It's me!" It was a woman, her voice tinged with the slightest hint of a Scottish accent. A warning flared in the back of my mind, but I didn't understand why. "Now just- just hold on. I'm coming to get you!"

Something crashed on the woman's end of the call and I heard her shout. The shuddering wheeze of a TARDIS materializing sounded through the phone and then seemed to echo around me. Across the river, a large tree began to appear out of thin air. The wheezing stopped and a panel opened in the tree's wide, knotted trunk. Out stepped a woman in a dark purple dress, her hair curled and pinned in what had once been an elegant style atop her head. Now several thick pieces of hair had come loose and fallen around her face and neck, and her face was marked with black scuffs.

Her ice blue eyes widened at the sight of me. She was frozen for a moment and then she practically launched herself at me, stumbling through the river without a single care about the water splashing up to her thighs. I fell backwards off the rock, wary of the wild eyed woman advancing on me, but she caught me by the wrist and steadied me. Then she pulled me into her arms and buried her hands in my hair.

"You're alright," she gasped. My arms were pinned between my body and hers. "I-I thought…" She pulled back slightly and her hands cupped my cheeks, her eyes eagerly searching mine. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know you," I said softly.

The woman laughed. "Don't be silly, of course you do!"

I pulled my face out of her grasp and stepped back. "I don't," I said firmly. "I'm sorry." And although I didn't recognize her, there was something familiar about her that I couldn't put my finger on. Her bright red lips and smokey eyes reminded me of something, of someone, but there were no memories associated with her face. Except for a name. "Missy?"

The woman smiled, but before she could say anything a shout from the hill above cut her off. The Doctor was standing on the hilltop, her sonic held out in front of her as she looked down at us. "I heard a TARDIS materialize nearby," she called. "What's going on?"

"Time to go!"

Missy grabbed me by the wrist and dashed across the river, dragging me along behind her. The Doctor called my name and raced down the hill after us. The panel in the tree opened with a brush of Missy's hand and we stumbled inside, the door sliding shut just behind me. She dropped my wrist and rushed off, but I immediately turned and tried to wrench the door back open.

"The door's isomorphic, love. It only opens for me."

The Doctor banged against the opposite side of the door, calling my name frantically. "Doctor!" I shouted. "Doctor, help!"

"Hush! I can't concentrate with the two of you shouting."

I whirled around to stare fearfully at the woman as she worked her way around a black and silver console. Although it was a different design and layout than the Doctor's, I could easily tell that Missy was about to dematerialize. "Stop it. Missy, stop it!" I yelled. "Stop!"

"I'm not letting you go," she said, pulling hard on the dematerialization lever.

"No!"

I raced forward and shoved her aside, my books and phone clattering to the floor as I tried to find the phase controller or handbrake in an attempt to stop the ship. Missy's hands tore at mine, trying to drag them away. I was scared and confused, desperately trying to keep her away from the controls long enough for me to pilot the ship myself.

"Diana, stop!" she snapped in my ear. Her fingers closed around my wrist and then yanked my hand behind my back. She turned me around and leaned me over the console, the buttons and levers digging into my back as her face hovered over mine. "I just watched you die. I am not going to lose you again!"

I froze, the sound of her TARDIS whirring in my ears as the dematerialization completed. Looking up into her wild, icy eyes I suddenly realized why my mind had instinctively warned me about her presence. "Get off of me," I breathed, my voice shaky and my eyes watering. "Get off!"

I broke free from her grasp and stumbled to the side, frantically trying to put as much distance between myself and the psychopath that had just kidnapped me. Missy watched me silently, curiously, patiently waiting for my next move. My mouth was trembling when I finally gathered enough courage to speak again. "What do you want with me?"

Missy's expression was completely unreadable. "I wanted to see you again," she said.

"Are you trying to get to the Doctor? Because I barely know her," I rambled. "She knows me somehow, but- Look. Whatever you want, please, just don't hurt me."

"Diana, I would never-"

"No! Don't." I didn't realize I was crying until Missy's figure was almost indiscernible. I haphazardly wiped my cheeks dry and backed towards the doors. "Don't come any closer. Please."

Silence stretched uncomfortably between us until Missy sighed and turned, leaning heavily against the console with her head bowed. "So you remember, then. You didn't recognize me and you barely know the Doctor, but you remember who I am. I'm not a moron. I know what that means." Her laugh was bitter and short. "Well done, Missy. You've made a fine mess of things."

With another gentle sigh, the TimeLady turned to me and smiled. "I can fix this," she murmured. "I _will_ fix this." She typed something into the scanner, the input showing up as Gallifreyan writing, and then flipped a tiny lever below the keyboard.

"W-What are you doing?" I stammered, hardly daring to breathe.

Missy's gaze met mine and I saw sorrow haunting her suddenly ancient eyes. "I'm making things right."

Spouting out of the cracks and corners of the console room came several puffs of smoke. Missy turned towards me and I inhaled sharply, immediately launching into a coughing fit as I backed myself into a corner. I knew there was something in the smoke because my vision was starting to swirl and blur, and my lungs were beginning to ache. My legs crumpled beneath me and I fell to my knees, the spinning sensation in my head making me feel dizzy and nauseous.

"I know you wouldn't want me to do this, that you'd want me to be better." Missy's voice sounded distant and far away, almost muted. "But this is the only way I know how to fix what I've done."

I fell forward and into the Master's waiting arms, my cheek pressed against her arm. I could feel her knees under my back as she gently laid me on her lap. Her fingers cupped my face, but I could barely keep my eyes open, let alone see what she was doing. I tried to grasp the lapel of her dress. Then, darkness.

* * *

I winced when my eyes next fluttered open, the pale yellow lights shining a little too brightly overhead. My lungs stung slightly when I breathed in and my forehead was pounding. Groaning, I rolled onto my side and stopped when I realized I was lying on some kind of chaise lounge; an armrest pressed against my stomach to keep me from rolling over the edge.

"Awake at last!" a cheery voice sounded. I rubbed the corner of my eye as a woman dressed in violet stepped into view. "I was wondering when you'd come round."

I frowned, focusing intently on the woman as my brain tried to scramble for a name. "Missy." It was half a question, half a statement, halting and hesitant like a child still learning how how to speak. Missy smiled. "Wait. Where- Where am I?"

"My TARDIS." She sat down at the far end of the lounge, her skirt hiking up just far enough to show her black leather boots. "Sleep well?"

"I think."

"Any dreams?"

My brows furrowed as I tried to recall the fleeting memories of my dream. "I don't remember them." I shook my head and ruffled some of my hair, hoping it didn't look like an absolute mess. "Uh, where're my glasses?"

Reaching past the lapel of her dress jacket, Missy pulled out my glasses and handed them to me. She brushed the lenses off with her sleeve and then slipped them over my ears. "Now. How's your memory?"

"What?"

Missy's smile dropped and she tsked, shaking her head. "Oh dear. You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?"

She patted my ankle with a well manicured hand, each of her nails painted black. "After I brought you onboard, you said your head was hurting. Then you couldn't remember where you were, or the Doctor, or even me. And then you passed out."

I anxiously rubbed my chest directly over my lungs, as if I could rub out the dull ache through my muscles. "I did?"

"Mm."

"Well, I- I remember… something. I was with the Doctor, I think. We went somewhere. There was a tree, maybe?" I groaned in frustration and closed my eyes, trying to block out the console room and focus on the hazy memories rattling around inside my head. "Wait a second." My eyes flew open and I cast Missy a skeptical look. "Did you kidnap me?"

Missy grimaced and gestured vaguely with a twist of her hand. "Kidnap is such a nasty word, don't you think? I borrowed you."

"Wait, you borrowed me?" I hastily crawled out of my seat and took a few steps back, one arm extended in front of me. "No, I know I was with the Doctor. I remember that now. And you kidnapped me and I only know your name! Why don't I know who you are? Oh, that's weird. I didn't realize I noticed that."

"Perhaps it would be best for me to explain." I raised my eyebrows, but didn't move any closer or farther away from the woman and her alluring eyes. "I'm a friend of yours. A best friend, actually, from your future. We never really meet in the right order, I'm afraid. But that's what happens when you're friends with a rogue Time Lady."

Although my immediate memories were still confused and jumbled, I could remember with incredible clarity the events before Missy's appearance. Ali and the Starmen, Cassandra - who wasn't really my Cassandra at all, the ghosts that had nearly killed me, and my home. I shook my head and told myself not to think about the family and friends I had left behind. A flash of a memory sparked in my mind's eye: Missy grabbing onto my hand and dragging me into her TARDIS. I met her gaze and suddenly felt like something was wrong.

"You did kidnap me, didn't you?"

"I borrowed you, Diana," she insisted, her accent turning very Scottish. "And it wasn't for any nefarious purposes, before you get any strange ideas in that pretty head of yours."

"Then why did you kidnap me?"

"Borrow!" Missy sighed and rolled her eyes, her lips pressed firmly together. "I panicked," she admitted. "I was in a fight with some Daleks and you were trying to help me and you died. Only you didn't. At the time, I thought you were dead, that the Daleks had killed you, and I sort of lost my mind. Oops." She flashed me an unconvincingly apologetic smile. "I took you because I thought that I'd lost you and the thought of you dying- the thought of your death being because of me… I couldn't-…"

My throat seemed very dry and suddenly, the metal flooring seemed incredibly interesting. "Am I dead?"

"Of course not, stupid."

"No, I mean- you said-"

"I was wrong." The serious gleam in Missy's eyes turned playful and she sprang to her feet, bouncing playfully on the tips of her toes. She licked her bright red lips and grinned. "Luckily for the both of us, you're very much alive. It'd be a shame to lose a figure like yours."

Although it wasn't the time or the place, I was more than flattered and flustered by the Time Lady's flirtatious comments. She was standing by the console, humming to herself as she looked over the controls. I padded over to the console and attempted to peek over her shoulder, but she tsked and shook her head.

"Oh, no. Where we're going is a surprise." She positioned me a few paces away and then looked me up and down, smiling. "Just stay there and look pretty for me. You do it so well," said Missy, winking in my direction.

The ship creaked and groaned as it began to dematerialize, Missy racing around the console to keep everything in order. "Where are we going?" I asked, grabbing onto the edge of a panel to keep myself steady.

"Where you belong," she called over the wheezing of her ship. "Trust me!"

The flight evened out a few moments later and with a snap of her fingers, the doors of her TARDIS flew open. Sunlight streamed into the console room, bright and warm with the faintest sigh of a breeze to accompany it. Missy took my hand and led me to the doors, gesturing to the rolling green hills that stretched out to the horizon. "The Eye of Orion."

"But that's where-"

She nodded. "I know. That's why I brought you back." Her hands ran absently along my arms, leaving goosebumps in her wake. "I shouldn't have borrowed you. But I made sure you were alright and that's enough for me. For now, at least." Missy smiled and took my face in her hands, her thumbs gently stroking my cheeks. "I'm going to do right by you, Diana Scott. I swear it."

Her lips pressed against mine and time froze. It had been ages since my last kiss, ages since another woman held me in her arms and kissed me like I was her entire world. But there I was, wrapped in Missy's embrace with her rose red lips locked onto mine. I wasn't even sure how it happened, but my hands wound up grasping her arms, holding her close as I leaned into her.

A sigh escaped my lips after Missy pulled away, my heart almost beating right out of my chest. She smiled and her thumb traced a sticky smear of lipstick along my lower lip. "There's more where that came from," she breathed. "Call me?"

I nodded dumbly. "Yeah."

I was guided outside and handed my belongings, the foreign call of a bird sounding across the valley below us. "Au revior, mon amour!" Missy chirped from the console. "Don't forget to call!"

The doors slammed shut and, with a few beats of my heart, her tree shaped TARDIS had completely disappeared, as if it had never been there at all. My fingers trailed along the curve of my lips, still tingling from Missy's kiss. I was still replaying that kiss in my mind when the Doctor came running up the hill towards me, minutes later, out of breath and worried out of her mind.

"What happened?" she all but demanded, hands anxiously searching my face for any signs of injury. "Are you hurt? Are you alright? Who took you?"

"I-I'm fine," I stammered. "It was-… It was a friend of mine. She came looking for me. She thought I'd died."

"So she kidnapped you?"

I shrugged. "I think… I think she thought she'd lost me."

" _I_ thought I'd lost you," the Doctor countered, drawing me into a firm hug. "I'm just glad you're safe." I stared out at the horizon over the Doctor's shoulder, unsure of what I was feeling with all the hormones, worries, and confusing thoughts scrambled inside my mind. The Doctor pulled back and took my hand, her fingers twining easily with mine. "Let's get back to the TARDIS. I think we've had enough excitement for one day."


	8. The End of the World: Part 1

**Author's Note: I know, it's been a while! You can blame my new favorite series of fics (the Monsoon Seasons series by noblecrescent) and also me being super gay for the return of this story. Please also forgive any dumb typos I made. My grammar isn't all that bad, but I tend to make a lot of silly mistakes when I type. But either way, I hope you all enjoy the newest chapter!**

* * *

The Doctor looked across the console at me. "What's on your face?" she asked, her brows furrowed deeply.

I patted my hands against my cheeks in confusion. "N-Nothing?" My thumb dragged through the remnants on Missy's lipstick and immediately I felt the entirety of my face turn hot. Hastily licking the back of my hand, I rubbed at the stain along my lips with the hope that it would be gone before the Doctor could see it again.

A pair of dark combat boots stepped into sight and slowly, I trailed my eyes along the Doctor's frame to eventually meet her gaze. She frowned as she crouched down before me, one arm already extended towards my face. "Is this lipstick?" she inquired.

"Uh…"

The Doctor's frown materialized into a smile, albeit a confused one. "Why'd you put this on?"

"Oh, no reason," I mumbled, unable to meet the Time Lord's eyes any longer. They were the brightest, most inquisitive and capturing eyes I'd ever seen, and I feared I'd fall right into them.

"Well, you've smeared it now," she chuckled. "Here." Swiping her tongue across her thumb, the Doctor took up my attempts to clean my lips. She hummed softly, leaning in closer when the job proved to be more frustrating than she'd likely thought it would be.

I'm not a floozy. I don't just fall at someone's feet because they flash me a smile. But if there is one thing that can make me weak in the knees, it's someone like the Doctor doing exactly what she was doing. My gaze flitted across her face as she tugged at my bottom lip; it wasn't even a remotely romantic gesture, but it stirred something in me nonetheless. I couldn't help noticing how attractive she was, how smooth her skin was, how surprisingly pleasant she smelled. _Is that Old Spice? Talk about a butch power move_ , I thought with an absent smile.

She glanced up at me and grinned. "What're you smiling about?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. "I was just thinking."

Her thumb was pressed lightly against my lip and I knew that if I had been standing up, I would've needed something to lean against. The Doctor reached inside her jacket and pulled out a handkerchief. She dabbed the fabric against my lip and then stood a second later, tucking it back into her pocket.

I put my hand in hers when she gestured for me to do so. "Since I realize," she began as she tugged me to my feet, "that this is all new for you, you should know something."

"Yes?"

The Doctor squeezed my hand. "I'm a touch telepath." _Oh, God!_ She released my hand with a laugh. "I'm sorry, but I just had to see your face!"

If a black hole had appeared inside the TARDIS then, I would've flung myself inside without a second thought. I balled my hands into fists and pressed my knuckles against my cheeks, hoping the constant coolness of my fingers would calm the blush that raged across the entirety of my face. Turning my back on the Doctor, I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to God that I might one day be able to live down this embarrassment.

A hand on my shoulder and another on the opposite bicep turned me back around. Still laughing good-naturedly, the Doctor tugged on my elbow so she could see my face. "Diana. Diana, I'm sorry." She took hold of my chin and directed my face towards her. "I didn't mean to pry, but you were practically screaming in there. It was impossible _not_ to hear you."

"I-I-I-"

"Don't be," she interjected. "It's good to know that after all these years, you still find me attractive. Especially this daft face." Pressing a kiss to my forehead, the Doctor started for the opposite end of the console room. "Don't worry. I promise not to tease you anymore!"

Because of my temporary kidnapping on the Eye of Orion, the Doctor was adamant that we not travel anywhere in case someone else adapted Missy's idea. Instead, the Doctor decided to take me on a tour of the TARDIS. "Good on me for making you a map, but," she said as I trailed after her down a particularly long hallway, "let's be honest - a personalized tour is much better." Our main stops included everything on the map, except for hers and Clara's room, the latter of which I felt was vital not to mention, as well as a music room, astrometrics lab - the Doctor claimed that the writers of _Star Trek: Voyager_ had absolutely stolen the idea from her - and a garden.

The garden surprised me more than anything else simply because it seemed as though the Doctor would need nothing short of a miracle to keep a plant alive in between all her ridiculous escapades and near death experiences. It was that thought that overcame my mind as we strolled through the garden, the Doctor uncharacteristically quiet. I could feel her watching me as we walked parallel to each other, a small, green hedge from some far away planet the only thing between us.

"Are you alright?" she finally asked.

"Hm? Oh. Yeah." I ran the pad of my thumb across the nails of my other fingers, absently wondering if the Doctor had any nail clippers on board. "Just thinking."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

I sighed. _There's a lot of them._ Brushing a few stray hairs out of my eyes, I said, "Don't you ever get scared? Of dying?"

The Doctor halted mid-step and looked at me as though I'd just spewed heresy. "What made you think of that?"

I shrugged. "My brain just sort of jumped down a rabbit hole."

"Are _you_ scared you're going to die?"

An empty laugh bubbled up in my chest. "That's a loaded question, but that's not why I asked. I just-… I just thought that you're always traveling and always going on big adventures, but sometimes - most of the time, now that I think about it - things go wrong and people get hurt. You get hurt. Doesn't that scare you?"

"Does it scare you?" the Doctor countered, her voice suddenly very soft and very low.

I hadn't expected her to turn the question back on me, but the answer rang loud and clear in my mind nonetheless. "I don't know," I lied, looking anywhere but into the Doctor's eyes. "I asked you first."

The Doctor smiled sadly and she suddenly seemed very small inside her big, leather jacket. "Yeah, but I know you, Diana. Better than you might think and I _know_ how you think. It's okay to be scared." I shifted uncomfortably, stuffing my hands into my trouser pockets with a huff. "In all the time we've traveled together, I-… I've always done everything - anything - possible to keep you safe. You don't have to be afraid."

 _But I am._ I thought about the Starmen and how terrified I'd been when they attacked, how I'd run as fast as I could and cowered while the Doctor scaled its body and risked her life to save the world. "I could never do what you do," I breathed. "Run headfirst into danger? Throw myself into a battle to save someone, to save the world o-or a galaxy or the universe? Doctor, what you did today, I couldn't-… I could never do that. I'd run away."

"Diana, when I was young, before I'd met all the people and done all things I have, all I did was run. I stole a TARDIS and my granddaughter, and we ran! I never stopped running, I still haven't. Except now I run towards danger instead of away." Beaming as thought the sun was shining through her very skin, the Doctor looked at me and her face radiated hope. "I was downright horrible back then, to be honest, but I learned something: I saved a person's life and it changed me. Once you help people, once you start saving them, everything changes and it's wonderful!"

The Doctor suddenly lifted her leg and climbed over the hedge, stumbling onto the pathway when her foot caught on a branch. She took my hand and smiled. "Come with me."

And then we were running. Well, the Doctor was running and I was jogging awkwardly behind her with most of my limbs flailing like one of those air-powered balloon tubes at a car dealership. Running while holding hands honestly wasn't as easy as it looked.

"Where are we going?" I asked, half out of breath.

We burst into the console room a second later, bolting up the walkway where the Doctor dropped my hand and gestured for me to take my place in front of the console. "You're the pilot - figure it out."

"What?"

Crossing her arms over her chest, the Doctor grinned at me. "G, 179 degrees."

"Wh-"

"Plus zero point two."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know, pilot. What _am_ I saying?"

"Am I supposed to understand you?"

The Doctor sighed, pulling an exasperated expression. "Oh, come on! You're smart!"

"Okay, smart ass, say it again and let me figure it out!" I snapped, only half annoyed.

"G, 179 degrees plus zero point two."

Frowning, I looked down at the console as I repeated the numbers in my head, straining to decipher them. _G? Degrees? 179? Well, it can't be temperature, can i-_ "Oh!" My lips curled into a broad smile and I smacked myself in the forehead, laughing. "Oh, stupid!"

Laid out across the panel were several different keyboards in a variety of colors. One of them, small and square, was colored red and the numbers zero through ten were carved into the keys, as well as a combination of letters. I quickly typed out the letter and numbers, and then looked at the Doctor.

"What next?" I asked.

"It's a bit big," she teased, stepping closer and leaning against the console so she was closer to my height. "You sure you can handle it?"

I snickered. "That's what she said." I leaned in close and smirked, not failing to notice the way the Doctor's eyes dropped to my mouth. Oddly enough, it just made me feel that much more competitive. Whatever she was trying to do, I'd show her just how good I was. "Try me."

"N fifty-one point five one six W zero point twelve seventy-eight."

I glanced back at the keyboard, my heart stammering as I felt the first of the numbers already slipping away. _If she hadn't looked at me like that_ , I told myself. "N one five-"

"Fifty-one," the Doctor interjected.

"Right."

"Don't let me distract you." I glanced at the Time Lord from the corner of my eye; had she moved closer? "Point five one six."

I echoed the words under my breath as I typed them out, hyper aware of the way the Doctor shifted her body weight so her shoulder brushed against mine. She repeated the final section of numbers for me and when I finished relaying them into the TARDIS, I dared to meet her eyes. She was _so close_ and I was so, so okay with it.

"Now?"

"Take us home, pilot."

"Where are we going?"

The Doctor smiled. "That would be telling."

When the TARDIS took off with a groan, the overhead lights flashed blue-green. The reflection of those lights against the Doctor's dark skin was incredibly beautiful and I watched as she straightened, readjusting the collar of her jacket as she kept her eyes locked on mine. The TARDIS shuddered to a halt seconds later and the lights returned to normal.

"Well?" I asked.

"What do you suppose you'd say to someone if you wanted to convince them to travel with you?"

Well, that was unexpected. I shook my head. "I don't know."

"What would you say to a girl, a very clever girl, if you wanted to convince her to travel with you?"

"I don't know," I said again. "Why are you asking me this?"

The Doctor started for the doors. "Because I'm trying to figure out how to convince your new best friend to travel with us." The door creaked as the Time Lady pulled it open. She stuck her head out and called, "By the way, Rose? Did I also mention that it travels in time?"

Stepping back a few paces, the Doctor winked in my direction and then focused on the door. A blonde woman came sprinting through the doorway a moment later. She slowed, taking a deep breath, and smiled as she gazed up at the ceiling. The door creaked and snapped shut, drawing the blonde from her thoughts. Her eyes flitted across the room before finally landing on me and realization washed over me as she flashed me a tongue-in-teeth smile.

"Rose Tyler, you remember Diana."

Rose wiggled her fingers at me. "Hiya!"

"Now, before we go any farther, I should explain something." Rose and I shot the Doctor a concerned look. "The Diana you met before is different from the one you're seeing now. She's, uh, a bit younger."

"Oh. Okay." Rose frowned. "Why?"

"Long story short, she time travels on her own sometimes, without me, and right now, she's not sure she wants to travel like we usually do. So," she continued, pacing around the console, "I thought, why not show her how magnificent it really is out there? And why not show her with a friend?"

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Me?"

"Mhm!"

"But I barely know her! Or you, for that matter. Not that I don't like you," she added hastily.

"Well, everyone needs a friend!" The Doctor's smile flickered, as if something had crossed her mind that wasn't as pleasant as her mood. "Even me. So, what do you say? Fancy a trip through time and space, Rose Tyler?"

Rose looked carefully at the Doctor, then at me, then back at the Doctor. Finally, she smiled and nodded enthusiastically, her hair bouncing slightly. "Yes. Absolutely, yes! Where are we going?"

The Doctor grinned. "Well, that depends on you two, doesn't it? Where do _you_ want to go? Backwards or forwards in time?"

Rose glanced at me, her eyebrows raised again. "D'you have a favorite?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

She bit down on her bottom lip in concentration. "Future!"

The Doctor nodded seriously, moving to one of the console panels. "How far?"

"One hundred years."

A pulled lever and five seconds later, the TARDIS had de- and rematerialized. "There you go," said the Doctor, gesturing to the TARDIS doors. "Step outside, it's the twenty second century."

Rose's mouth dropped open and I smiled; she was pretty damn cute. "You're kidding."

The Doctor shrugged nonchalantly. "That's a bit boring, though. Do you want to go further?"

"Fine by me!"

Another five seconds passed and the TARDIS had landed somewhere new. "Ten thousand years in the future. Step outside, it's the year 12,005, the new Roman Empire."

Rose scoffed. "You think you're so impressive."

"I am so impressive!" the Doctor insisted. "Diana, tell her!"

"Oh, yeah, get your girlfriend to compliment you." Rose rolled her eyes and my heart stopped. _Did she just say-?_ "You wish!"

The Doctor looked at me and seemed torn. It was impossible not to notice the stunned expression on my face, even I could tell that I looked like a fish out of water, but there was something sparkling in her eyes that I knew meant she was eager to prove herself - to both of us. She huffed and pointed at Rose. "Right then, Rose Tyler, you asked for it. I know exactly where to go. Hold on!"

* * *

"You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids," the Doctor said as we stood on foreign ground, in a beige colored room with a window that revealed a view of my planet far, far below us. It was large and blue, and just hovering in empty space like a puppet on a string. "But you never take time to imagine the impossible: that maybe you survive! This is the year five point five slash apple slash twenty-six. Five billion years in your future, and this is the day- Oh, hold on."She checked the brown wrist watch on her wrist and nodded. " _This_ is the day the Sun expands." Through the window, I watched as the sun released a huge flare that made the room turn red. "Welcome to the end of the world."

I shuffled forward a few steps and convinced myself to look as far out the window as I possibly could. I pressed my forehead against the glass and peered down, squinting past the faint reflection of my face and the glare of the inside lighting. There was nothing, just emptiness. A few stars twinkled when I tilted my head in the right direction and blocked the glare of the sun with my hand.

"Oh, God," I moaned, falling back a bit with my eyes screwed shut. It was like looking into the never-ending depths of the sea and that was already something that struck pure terror in my heart. "No more of that."

"Oh, but it's beautiful!" Rose gasped. "Isn't it?"

I happened to look back at the pair as the Doctor's eyes landed on me. She smiled faintly and nodded. "It is."

I blushed and quickly looked away. _Oh, boy._

Eager to show us the rest of the ship, the Doctor guided us to an exit that opened up into a long, narrow hallway. I could hear Rose gasping and whispering under her breath as we went, and I couldn't blame her for being so awestruck. It was truly incredible.

Something nudged me in the shoulder. I turned my head to see the Doctor eyeing me; she'd bumped her shoulder against mine. "You okay?" she asked. "You're very quiet."

"Yeah?"

She stopped, caught my elbow and pulled me to a stop as well, and waited for Rose to continue a few paces before looking back to me, whispering, "Look, about what Rose said earlier, about calling you my girlfriend? If that bothered you, I'm sorry. She was only teasing me."

"About what?"

The Doctor seemed alarmed by the question. "Ah. W-Well, that's a- that's a good question."

A computerized voice burst to life overhead, making both myself and the Doctor withdraw from each other in surprise. "Shuttles five and six now docking." The Doctor spotted Rose at the far end of the hallway and gestured for me to follow her. "Guests are reminded that Platform One forbids the use of weapons, teleportation and religion. Earth Death is scheduled for fifteen thirty nine, followed by drinks in the Manchester Suite."

"Religion's forbidden?" I said curiously. "That sounds…not right."

The Doctor scoffed lightly, her eyes trained on Rose as we hurried to catch up to her. "That sounds human."

Rose turned around as we felt into step behind her. She reached for the Doctor's arm, her fingers curling around the Doctor's sleeve, and drew closer to her. "So, when it says guests, does that mean people?"

"Depends what you mean by people."

Rose frowned. "I mean _people_. What do you mean?"

"Aliens." The Doctor grinned and surged past Rose, heading for a panel in the dark, marble wall.

"What are they doing on board this spaceship?" she asked. "What's it all for?"

"'What's it for'?" I echoed. "They're here to watch the Earth burn, Rose," I said, as if the answer was obvious. I blinked, rubbing my palm against the base of my skull where a dull ache had started, and shook my head to try and clear my thoughts. "Uh, s-sorry, that was rude."

"Something wrong with your head?"

I met the Doctor's eyes hesitantly and could tell immediately that she was worried. "No, I'm fine. Just a headache." I caught Rose's attention with an apologetic smile. "I'm really sorry. My brain's been a little foggy recently."

"Are you sick?" the blonde asked. "You need some aspirin?"

I smiled, shaking my head. "No, but thank you, Rose." My smile melted away rather quickly, however, when the ache in my head intensified for a moment and then faded away like low-level radiation. "I'm just having trouble remembering," I murmured.

The Doctor, who had been fiddling with the panel on the wall while I was speaking, suddenly stopped and lowered her screwdriver. "Remembering what?"

I looked over my shoulder in the direction we'd come from, picturing the Earth hovering below us as it waited to be engulfed by the sun. "The end of the world."

An almost memory sparked to life deep within my mind: a person, their silhouette the only thing visible besides the swirling mass of brown, dark red, and gold that seemed to bleed into each other. They were in danger and I had to save them. I slipped my fingers behind my glasses to rub my eyes and the vision disappeared, the memory with it. A sudden dizzy spell made me sway to one side, throwing me off balance and I, as a result, stumbled into Rose.

"Diana!"

I could feel hands and arms on me, fingers in my hair, probing at the back of my neck. The Doctor's face, distorted with worry, swam before me, but I couldn't focus on it. Flashes of golden hair caught my eye and I tried to follow them, my eyes chasing the tail ends of Rose's hair as she hovered over me.

"Diana! Diana, look at me!" Annoyed at the Doctor's demanding tone, I forced my eyes to roll in her direction and frowned when my vision finally focused on her.

"I'm fine," I groaned.

The Doctor scowled. "Like hell you are. We're taking you back to the TARDIS."

My hand trembled as I tried to grab onto the Doctor's coat, my fingers grasping weakly at her lapel. "No. D-Don't," I struggled to say. "I have to…save someone."

"Oh, I didn't mean for you to take me so literally!"

I groaned again and shut my eyes, turning my face away from the Doctor. "Not so loud, _God._ " I took a deep breath in, held it for a few seconds, and then exhaled slowly through my nose. I repeated this three more times and on my last exhalation, I opened my eyes again. The dizziness had dissipated by then, so I fisted the Doctor's lapel in my hand and focused on her again. "Help me up, please."

With the Doctor on my right side and Rose on my left, they helped me rise and continued to hold onto my arms as I found my footing. "I think I'm alright now," I said, bouncing slightly on my toes to test out my balance.

"What happened?" Rose asked worriedly.

"I don't know. I had this memory of something, of someone, and then…" I trailed off and brushed my hair away from my eyes. "That was kind of horrible. I've never felt so dizzy before. Doctor, what was that?"

The emotions swirling in the Doctor's eyes were almost impossible to interpret, but her face was easier to read. She was worried, confused, and scared, and I knew that if the Doctor was scared, then whatever was going on inside my head wasn't good. She reached for my face and her fingertips just brushed my cheekbone. "I don't know," she admitted. "We should go. I have to-"

A surge of anger rose up in my chest and I snapped, "No!" The Doctor stared at me incredulously, her mouth a rigid line. "We can't go."

"Diana, you always do this, but will you please, for once, listen to me? You're not well!"

"No. No, we have to stay," I said, gripping her forearm and looking seriously into her eyes. "I-I can't explain it, but there's something inside me that says we have to stay." My free hand balled into a fist and thumped against my chest directly above my heart. It felt as though I'd eaten a spoonful of peanut butter that was now stuck in my throat - I couldn't breathe and the lump in my throat was painful, but it meant something. It was telling me to stay. "I-I've never felt this way before."

The Doctor smiled the saddest, most loving smile I'd ever seen. She shook her head, sighing, "You never change." Letting her chin fall to her chest, the Doctor sighed again. "Alright, we'll stay."

The lump in my throat suddenly vanished and I took a deep, gasping breath. "Thank you," I said. " _Thank you_."

"But if anything else happens, I'm taking you back to the TARDIS."

"Okay."

The Doctor watched me for a moment, her fingers tapping nervously against the surface of her screwdriver. Finally, she nodded and turned back to the panel that had captured her attention before my dizzy spell.

"Blimey," said Rose, her hands poised on her hips, "are you two always this intense?"

"Only on a good day." The Doctor turned and flashed us both a grin as a door to the left of the panel, which I had only just noticed, slid open. "And today's a pretty good day. I even got the door open!"

Beyond the door was a vast room, mostly painted beige with hints of marble along the walls, with an enormous viewing window and a ceiling that seemed to hover several stories above our heads. Through the window was the same sight we had been greeted with when we first exited the TARDIS: the sun, standing ready to envelop the Earth with a fiery embrace. As we three approached the window, Rose spoke up again, inquiring about the Earth's seemingly unchanged surface and the sun's expansion.

"The planet's now property of the National Trust," the Doctor explained. "They've been keeping it preserved. See down there?" She pointed to one of the tiny spaceships hovering above the Earth, which didn't look like much more than big hump of metal floating about. "Gravity satellites holding back the sun. And the continents - the Trust shifted them back, too. That right there's a classic Earth. But now the money's run out, so nature takes over."

Rose looked horrified. "But what about all the people? Aren't you going to do something?"

The Doctor shook her head, swinging her arms free from their crossed position over her chest to rest behind her back, her hands clasped together. "It's empty. They're all gone. No one left."

Rose's shoulders slumped and she looked out the window again at the Earth, her hand pressed against the glass. "Just us, then. It really is the end of the world."

The hissing of metal doors sliding open drew all three of us from our thoughts. Hurrying through the doorway was a man about the Doctor's height, dressed in copper colored robes with a matching cap, and he was literally blue in the face. He was in the middle of giving out orders to a group of other, child-sized, blue people when he spotted us.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, striding across the room in a matter of seconds.

The Doctor humphed. "Oh, that's nice," she grumbled. "Thanks."

"How did you get in here? This is a maximum hospitality zone," the man told us. His eyes were pale gold and slitted like a snake's, and although I tried very hard not to be disturbed by his appearance, I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. It was like talking to a member of the Blue Man Group, only with some fancy under eye tattoos and snake eyes. "The guests have disembarked- Oh! Oh, no, they're already here!"

Following the man's gaze to the doors, I saw a group of people enter the room and a woman at the very front who's bark-like skin sparked the completion of the memory I had been trying to decipher earlier. She wasn't much taller than myself, her skin was dark brown and instead of hair covering the top of her head, there was what looked like part of a mossy tree trunk that extended several inches. I noticed with a smile that the tips of the trunk were decorated with autumn colored leaves. Her red overskirt flared out as she walked and in my mind, the blurred image that I had seen before cleared up and merged with the real-life image.

I could hear the Doctor speaking, first to the blue man and then to Rose after the man hurried off in the tree woman's direction, but I didn't care enough to listen to a word of it. I watched as the blue man approached the tree woman and apologized for not introducing her. She smiled kindly and replied, just soft enough that I couldn't hear her, and waited patiently for him to hurry over to a podium beside the entrance.

"Introducing the first of our honored guests, we have, representing the Forest of Cheam, trees!" the man announced. "Namely, Jabe, Lute and Coffa."

I inhaled sharply, snapping my fingers as the final piece of the puzzle that was my memory clicked into place. "Of course!" I exclaimed in a shout-whisper. "Jabe!"

"You know her?" asked Rose.

"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "But I remember her."

"Also in attendance," the blue man continued to announce, "are the Doctor, her wife, Diana Scott, and their companion, Rose Tyler."

 _That_ was enough to draw my attention from Jabe and her group of tree people. I whirled on the Doctor, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Wife?"

"It was the best I could come up with!" she insisted.

"I barely know you!"

That, in turn, drew Rose's attention and she frowned at me. "Wait, you what?"

The blue man cleared his throat loudly, his eyes focused on us. "There will be an exchange of gifts representing peace after everyone has been announced," he said, his voice a touch louder than necessary. "If you all could keep the room circulating, please? Thank you. Next, from the solicitors Jolco and Jolco, we have the Moxx of Balhoon!"

For the next few minutes, the same basic pattern was followed: the names, titles, and/or ranks of the guests would be announced, followed by their entrance at the front of the room. I watched curiously as some of them entered, not having seen most of them before like the Adherents of the Repeated Meme or the ambassadors from the city-state of Binding Light, but for the most part my attention remained fixed on Jabe and her people. The moment I saw her, I knew that she was part of, if not the whole reason why I felt so strongly about staying on the station. The purpose of which was still uncertain as that part of my memory hadn't cleared up yet, but I knew that there was something important about her.

After everyone had been introduced, including the Face of Boe, who was also apparently the sponsor of the entire event, the exchanging of gifts was initiated. The Doctor patted down her chest, feeling the outside of all her coat and trouser pockets, but found nothing other than her psychic paper.

"The Gift of Peace," said Jabe, the first of the guests to approach us. She turned to one of her people, a tree person easily a foot taller than the Doctor with bark-skin almost as pale as mine, and picked up a small plant. "I bring you a cutting of my grandfather."

The Doctor tenderly took the plant in her hands and smiled. "Thank you." She quickly handed it over to me and I held it close to my chest, inspecting the little green leaves that hung from the main stem. Was I holding a person in my hands? The Doctor laughed a little and bounced awkwardly on her toes. "Gifts," she muttered. "Uh, I give you in return air from my lungs!"

Jabe's lips fluttered into a smile. "How…intimate," she sighed.

The Doctor grinned. "There's more where that came from," she assured her.

"I bet there is."

My eyes followed Jabe and her party as they left to hand out the rest of their peace offerings. _Why did I remember her?_ I wondered. _What's so special about her that I need to stay so badly? And why can't I remember what's going to happen?_


	9. The End of the World: Part 2

The Gifts of Peace that we received from the rest of the guests were divided between myself and Rose, with Rose's least treasured possession being the Moxx of Balhoon's spit in her face. I stared curiously at the strange, golden box given to us by the ambassadors of Binding Light, who had informed us that it was a relic of their first ruler, and I prayed that there wasn't something unpleasant inside like a finger.

Madame Moisturize Me was introduced once everyone had finished exchanging gifts, but I really didn't care for or about the woman. She was cruel, wicked, and just plain annoying. As she rambled on and on about her multiple, dead husbands, I searched the room for Jabe. I wanted to know more about her and I hoped that if I learned even one insignificant fact about her, I might be able to remember why she was so special.

"And where are you going?" the Doctor asked, grabbing onto my elbow as I started to wander off.

I offered the Time Lord an unconvincing smile. "Nowhere?"

The beginning beats of _'Tainted Love'_ started playing then and I started, finding that an old jukebox near the entrance was the source of the music. I frowned, but couldn't resist bobbing my head in time with the song. When I turned back to the Doctor, I caught her gazing at me with a fond expression that made me curious, confused, and a little bit uncomfortable. Recalling our flirtatious endeavors earlier in the day and the Twelfth Doctor's cryptic comments even earlier, it occurred to me that maybe there was something that the Doctor wasn't telling me.

I wanted to ask her why she was looking at me like that, why I felt so _wrong_ inside, why I felt so compelled to stay on the station and why I was so drawn to Jabe. I wanted to run back inside the TARDIS, lock my door behind me, and go to sleep and never wake up. I wanted to know who the hell Missy was and why she'd kissed me like it was the only thing that had ever mattered in the history of the universe. More than anything, I wanted to wake up and realize that everything, even the urge to know what kissing the Doctor might be like, was really just a dream, even though I knew it wasn't.

The Doctor's brows furrowed, drawing my wandering eyes back to hers. "What're you thinking about?" she wondered.

"Doctor?" The Doctor and I both turned towards the voice to see Jabe standing in front of us. A brief flash emanated from a device in her hands and for a moment, all I could see were spots of white everywhere I looked. "Thank you," she said with a smile.

Jabe raced out of sight a moment later and it felt like a rope was tied around my heart, connecting me to her and drawing me in the farther away she went.

"Wait a minute, where's Rose?"

"Hm?"

The Doctor turned in a circle, frantically trying to locate her newest companion. "She was just here! I can't see her." Grabbing hold of my shoulders, the Doctor directed me to look at her. "Stay here. I'll be right back. Don't move!"

I nodded. "Okay." But the moment the Doctor turned her back on me, I hurried off in the direction I'd last seen Jabe go.

There were niches carved into the walls, lined with the same dark marble that was scattered throughout the parts of the station I had come across, and there were two immediately to the right of Jabe's disappearance point. I peered around dark cloaks and tall, bulbous-headed aliens, but found no sign of Jabe's red and gold dress.

"I see you also have a relic."

Startled, I turned around and found myself face to face with Jabe herself. She smiled and pointed to the box in my right hand. "Oh! That. Uh, yeah."

"What's yours?" she asked. "I got a ring."

"Oh, I-I haven't looked yet," I said. Now that she had found me, I couldn't think of anything to say to her.

Jabe stepped a little closer, gesturing to my figure. "Can I ask where you're from? The Steward didn't say."

"Earth."

If Jabe had eyebrows, I felt sure she would've raised them in response. "Are you human? You don't look like Lady O'Brien."

"Well, yes, but-." I stole a glance through the crowd and spotted Cassandra as her assistants wheeled her around. "She's different."

"That's not much of an answer." When I stammered a nonsense reply, Jabe waved her hand dismissively. "What about your wife, the Doctor? Is she human, too?"

"Oh, no, that's just me and Rose. She's from Galli-"

"There you are!" The Doctor's voice cut through my answer as she stepped around Jabe, reaching for my arm to pull me close. "I told you not to move."

"But I was looking for her!" I said, gesturing to Jabe with a nod of my head.

Jabe's smile faded slightly and she crossed her arms over her abdomen. "Were you?"

With both women staring seriously at me, I overwhelmingly felt like curling up into a ball so I wouldn't have to answer any more questions. My eyes fell to the floor and I hugged the two gifts I'd been given close to my chest, the leaves of Jabe's gift tickling my chin. The Doctor moved her hand from my bicep to my shoulder, but I pulled out her grasp with a frown.

"Diana?"

"N-Never mind," I mumbled.

Moving to stand beside me, the Doctor placed her hand on the small of my back. "Come on," she said, urging me forward with a little bit of pressure. "I still can't find Rose. I think she's wandered off somewhere."

"Would the owner of the blue box in private gallery fifteen please report to the Steward's office immediately?" declared a voice from above. "Guests are reminded that use of teleportation devices is strictly forbidden under Peace Treaty five point four slash cup slash sixteen. Thank you."

The Doctor groaned. "Oh, lovely! At this rate I'll lose you as well by the end of the day."

* * *

The Doctor crossed her arms with a frown, watching the group of tiny blue people from before roll the TARDIS away for safekeeping. "Oi, now, careful with that," she said. "Park it properly. No scratches."

One of the little helpers scurried over to the Doctor and I and handed the Doctor a business card that said _'Have A Nice Day'_ in stylized, dark, grey lettering. The Doctor glanced at me and grumbled wordlessly under her breath. Tucking the card into a pocket in her coat, the Doctor gestured for me to follow her.

"Now we've got to find your friend." Exiting the TARDIS's new resting place, the Doctor led us to a hallway with a handful of doors on either side. "You take that side, I'll take this one. If we're lucky, we won't have to traverse the entire station before we find her."

Padding across the hall, I readjusted the plant and box so they were balanced in my left hand, leaving my right free for knocking. I rapped my knuckles against the first door, called Rose's name, and heard no reply. The same result was given from every door except the very last one; upon pressing my ear to the door, I could hear Rose's faint reply.

"Doctor, this one!" I called.

In my excitement, the plant that I had placed atop the gilded box slipped off and the Doctor caught it just as it fell. She placed it in my free hand, then whipped out her sonic screwdriver and began working on the door. It slid open a few seconds later and we stepped inside. Rose was sitting on the top step inside what seemed to be the exact viewing room we'd left the TARDIS in, minus, of course, the TARDIS.

"There you are," the Doctor said. "What do you think, then?"

Rose heaved a great sigh. "Great. Fine. I mean, once you get past the slightly psychic paper." The Doctor sat down a few feet away from her, leaning back so she was braced against one elbow and her other arm was draped casually across her stomach. For a second, I wondered if she was posing. Then a second later, I thought that she looked damn good. "They're just so alien," Rose said; I blinked at pretended I hadn't just been checking out a handsome Time Lady. "The aliens are _so_ alien. You look at 'em… and they're alien."

The Doctor chuckled. "Good thing I didn't take you to the Deep South."

"Where are you from?" Rose questioned as I moved to sit down beside her, placing the plant and box beside her gifts.

The Doctor's smile faded and she looked from Rose to the window, her expression sadder and softer. "Oh, all over the place."

"They all speak English."

"Hm?"

"The aliens."

"Oh! No, you just hear English. It's a gift of the TARDIS!" The Doctor's smile was back as she explained just how brilliant her ship was. "The telepathic field gets inside your brain and translates."

"It's inside my brain?"

"Well, in a good way," the Time Lady assured her.

I could see that Rose was getting irritated. "Your machine gets inside my head," she snapped. "It gets inside and it changes my mind, and you didn't even ask?"

The Doctor made a panicked expression, then a thoughtful one. "I didn't think about it like that," she said."

"No, you were too busy thinking up cheap shots about the Deep South!" Taking a deep breath, Rose put a hand to her head and thought for a moment. "Who are you, then, Doctor? What are you called? What sort of alien are you?" She turned to me, her eyes flashing dangerously. "And what about you?"

"Me? I'm not an alien, I'm human!" I yelped.

"Are you?" she countered.

"Yes!"

Rose turned back to the Doctor. "You said you were an alien. Where're you from?"

The Doctor smiled weakly. "I'm just the Doctor."

"Yeah, but from what planet?"

"It's not as if you'll know where it is!"

"Where are you from?" Rose said again, louder.

"What does it matter?"

"Just tell me who you are!"

The Doctor sat up, her legs hanging off the edge of the steps. "This is who I am, Rose! Right here, right now, all right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me, so just leave it!"

Rose scowled. "Yeah and I'm here too because you brought me here, so _just tell me!_ "

The Doctor made a sound in the back of her throat, almost like a growl, and flew to her feet. She stuffed her hands deep inside her jacket pockets and started down the stairs so she could stand at the base of the window. Even through her jacket, I could tell that her shoulders were tensed; she was angry and hurt, and it's wasn't hard to guess why.

"Earth Death in twenty minutes," announced the same computerized voice from before. "Earth Death in twenty minutes."

Rose glanced at me and mumbled an apology. I smiled and hesitantly patted her hand, assuring her that all was forgiven. Then she stood and, after taking a breath to steady herself, followed the Doctor's path to the window. "Alright," I could hear her say. "As my mate Shareen says, don't argue with the designated driver. I'm sorry."

Pulling her phone out from her pocket, Rose hummed. "Can't exactly call for a taxi. There's no signal. We're out of range. Just a bit."

"Tell you what," said the Doctor, reaching for Rose's phone, "with a little bit of jiggery pokery-"

"Is that a technical term, jiggery pokery?"

The Doctor smiled, genuinely this time, as she pulled the back off the phone and pulled the battery out. "Yeah, I came first in jiggery pokery. What about you?"

Rose shook her head and laughed. "No, I failed hullabaloo."

Switching Rose's battery for a differently shaped one that she had pulled from somewhere inside her jacket - it seemed her pockets were endless and full of just about anything you could need - and handing the phone back to its owner, the Doctor grinned. "There you go!"

By the time I had reached the base of the stairs, Rose had already dialed a number and had her phone pressed against her ear. She stood a few paces to the side, looking out the window, and then gasped softly. "Mum?"

I moved to stand beside the Doctor and looked up at her. She was gazing out the window, watching another brilliant flash of sunlight curl outwards and whip towards the Earth. "You okay?" I asked.

"Mm."

"I'm sorry."

The Doctor side-eyed me, her expression half a frown and half incredulous. "What are you sorry for?"

"Well, you're sad about G-… about your home, aren't you?" The Doctor remained silent, carefully avoiding my gaze and turning her attention back to the view beyond the window. "I know I could never understand what it's like, but I am sorry. I wish I could help."

"Don't you think you could?"

It was my turn to frown. "What do you mean?"

"Don't you think you understand as well as I do what it's like to lose your entire planet?" Taking hold of my hand, the Doctor smiled sadly at me as I suddenly realized that although the Earth was hovering just below me, it wasn't _my_ Earth. "I'm sorry, too, love."

Pulling free of the Doctor's grasp, I walked back until I felt the stairs bump against my calves. I sat down and took a shaky breath, my eyes watering as I stared at the Earth and mourned everything I had ever known. I slipped my glasses off and my face dropped into my hands, a few tears already trailing down my cheeks. I had tried so hard not to think about the implications of being caught in another universe, a place where not even my own mother existed, and the Doctor had only reminded me of the truth.

A deep, rumbling sound echoed throughout the station as the room suddenly shook. Instinctually thinking it was an earthquake, I shot to my feet and reached for the Doctor, only to remember that I was floating high above the planet's surface a moment later. The Doctor grabbed my hand anyways.

"That's not supposed to happen." The Doctor tugged on my hand and just like that, we were racing for the exit.

* * *

"That wasn't a gravity pocket," the Doctor said as we returned to the main viewing room. The ambassadors were chattering with each other, clearly frightened by the station's shaking. "I know gravity pockets and they don't feel like that. What do you think, Jabe?" The woman just happened to walk and she stopped as the Doctor called her name. "Listen to the engines. They've pitched up about thirty Hertz. That dodgy or what?"

Jabe shook her head. "It's the sound of metal. It doesn't make any sense to me."

"Also, how do you know what a Hertz sounds like?" I asked.

"Hush, love." Irritated by her dismissiveness, I worked my hand free of the Doctor's and crossed my arms over my chest. "Where's the engine room?"

"I don't know," Jabe replied, "but the maintenance duct is just behind our guest suite. I could show you and your wife, and your… partner?"

The Doctor looked at Rose, realizing what Jabe was implying. "Oh, no, she's not our partner."

Jabe continued down a list of romantically and sexually connotated words, finally ending with prostitute, and that made Rose bristle considerably. "Whatever I am, it must be invisible. Do you mind?" the blonde snapped. "Tell you what, you two go and pollinate," she said, gesturing to Jabe and the Doctor, "and you, too, if you want, Di. I'm going to catch up with family. Quick word with Michael Jackson."

"Don't start a fight!" the Doctor called after her. Turning to Jabe, the Doctor offered the woman her arm and smiled. "We're all yours."

Jabe slipped her hand around the bend in the Doctor's arm and smiled in return. "I get the pair of you? Lucky me." Much to my surprise, I could tell that she wasn't being sarcastic.

 _Who would've thought we'd meet a gay tree?_ I thought to myself, barely noticing that the Doctor had taken hold of my hand again. _Would you get a splinter from doing… things?_

"Both of you, stop it." Jabe and I looked at the Doctor, confused by her sudden exclamation. "I can hear you! It's like lesbians in surround sound."

"What's a lesbian?" asked Jabe, at the same time that I declared, "I'm pan, thank you very much!"

Jabe peeked around the Doctor, catching my eye. "I thought you said you were human. What's a pan?"

* * *

"Here we are. Maintenance duct."

The Doctor inspected the panel that Jabe had motioned towards. "Just like you said. Thanks." She moved her sonic around the edge of the panel and was rewarded with a _pop!_ Removing the panel from the wall and placing it on the floor, the Doctor stepped inside and immediately ducked down, narrowly avoiding smacking her head against a metal pipe. "Come on, you two. Inside!"

Jabe gestured for me to go first, then followed me inside.

"Who's in charge of Platform One?" the Doctor asked as we walked down the corridor. "Is there a captain or what?"

"Are you asking me?"

"I'm asking anyone who has an answer."

I scoffed. "Yeah, that's not me."

"There's just the Steward and the staff," Jabe offered. "All the rest is controlled by the metal mind."

I glanced at her over my shoulder. " 'Metal mind'?" I echoed.

"D'you mean the computer?" Jabe nodded in response to the Doctor's question. "But who controls that?"

"The Corporation. They move Platform One from one artistic event to another."

"I didn't think there was anyone from the Corporation on board."

"There isn't. This facility is purely automatic. It's the height of the Alpha class! Nothing can go wrong."

Even from behind, I could hear the Doctor hum as though she disagreed. "Unsinkable?" she said.

"If you like. The nautical metaphor is appropriate."

"You're telling me! I was on board another ship once. They said that was unsinkable, too. I ended up clinging to an iceberg. It wasn't half cold!" The Doctor suddenly stopped and turned to face us, nearly making me run into her. "So, what you're saying is, if we get in trouble there's no one to help us out?"

"I'm afraid not," Jabe replied.

The Doctor grinned. "Fantastic."

"I don't understand. In what way is that fantastic?"

I glanced back at Jabe. "She says that all the time."

"Course I do! And you know you like it!"

Just then, the Doctor came across a control panel that looked a bit like a drive-thru intercom, complete with a computer screen and speaker, and beyond it a dead end. Whipping out her sonic, the Doctor started sorting through the available information.

"What are you looking for again?" I asked.

"Engine room. It might be past this door here. Maybe we'll find something in there to explain what's going on." The Doctor stole a glance at Jabe, who had braced herself with a hand against the wall and another on a large pipe that ran just past my head. It hadn't escaped mine or the Doctor's attention, it seemed, that she was standing very close, but I was sure it was just because the corridor was so small. "So tell me, Jabe, what's a tree like you doing in a place like this?"

"Respect for the Earth."

The Doctor laughed disbelievingly. "Oh, come on. Everyone on this platform's worth zillions, including you."

Jabe smiled and lowered her gaze. "Well, perhaps it's a case of having to be seen at the right occasions."

"Mm, in case your share prices drop? I know you lot! You've got massive forests everywhere, roots everywhere, and there's always money in land."

"Maybe so, Doctor, but all the same, we respect the Earth as family. So many species evolved from that planet. Mankind is only one. I'm another. My ancestors were transplanted from the planet down below, and I'm a direct descendant of the tropical rainforest."

The Doctor grunted and I noticed the words _'Access Denied'_ flash across the screen.

Jabe leaned forward slightly, her breath tickling the back of my neck. "And what about your ancestry, Doctor? Perhaps you could tell a story or two." I wasn't sure if she was trying to sound alluring on purpose or not. "Perhaps a woman like you only enjoys trouble when there's nothing else left." Her tone changed then, softening. "I scanned you both earlier. The metal machine could identify your wife as human, but it had trouble identifying your species. It refused to admit your existence. And even when it named you, I wouldn't believe it. But it was right, wasn't it? Forgive me for intruding, but it's remarkable that you even exist. I just wanted to say how sorry I am."

As Jabe had continued to speak, the Doctor's expression had shifted from curious to pained. She had stopped scanning the control panel and simply stood, hunched over and staring straight ahead, but seeing nothing. It broke my heart. I reached out and tentatively placed my hand on her forearm.

"Doctor?" I whispered.

She met my gaze and a tear fell from her eye, just one, but it was enough to make my own eyes water. She rested her hand over mine, smiled, and looked past me at Jabe. "Thank you."

A quick wave of the sonic over the door was enough to unlock it and the Doctor pushed it open, then offered her hand to myself and Jabe as we scrambled out. The size of the room was so overwhelming that for a long minute, all I could do was stand in silence and gape at the incredible amount of space around me. We had come out of a panel in the metal wall and were standing on a platform with a walkway that extended over a large chasm to the opposite wall. Three large fans easily bigger than a two-story house rotated above the walkway, the rotations just slow enough that you could walk across and not get sliced by the blades on your way. To our right, near the corner of the platform, were two metal boxes about my height and several feet across.

"Is it me or is it a bit nippy?" the Doctor asked. I let my eyes roam her face, surprised to find that there was no visible hint of tears or sadness. I reached out for her, wanting to ensure that she was okay, but I withdrew at the last minute. The Doctor didn't seem to notice because she continued rambling. "Fair do's, though, that's a great bit of air conditioning. Sort of nice and old-fashioned. Bet they call it retro," she chuckled.

Stooping to inspect one of the metal boxes with her screwdriver, the Doctor grinned when she found a panel in the side. She yanked it back and out popped a metal, four-legged spider! It looked up at us with one red eye, a beam of red light shining out, and then bolted for the wall. Its triangular feet tapped loudly against the wall as it scurried away.

The Doctor stepped back a pace. "What the hell's that?"

"Is it part of the retro?" Jabe wondered.

"I don't think so." Pointing her sonic at the spider as it continued up the wall, the Doctor moved closer to the wall. She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat and rose onto her toes, only to fall back on flat feet when Jabe nabbed the spider with a vine that shot out of her arm. The spider fell right into the Doctor's waiting hands. "Thanks! Nice liana."

I raised an eyebrow. "Liana?"

Jabe smiled shyly and I thought I could see her blushing. "We're not supposed to show them in public."

The Doctor winked. "Don't worry, I won't tell anybody." Turning the spider over in her hand, she hummed thoughtfully. "Now then, who's been bringing their pets on board?"

"What is it?" I asked.

"Not sure, but I _do_ know what it's for: sabotage. Come on, you two. We've got to get to the bottom of this."

We returned to chaos. Smoke had filled up the hallway outside the maintenance duct and the tiny blue people who had wheeled the TARDIS away earlier were all joined together outside a room, squabbling nonsensically. The Doctor pushed her way through the group to the control panel beside the door. "Hold on. Hold on, you lot! Let me look!" She did something with her sonic and the computer announced to us that the sun filter was rising.

I looked at Jabe, confused. "What's a sun filter?"

"It's a special filter that covers the windows to keep the sun from destroying everything."

"But how does it destroy things? It's just sunlight."

"I don't know, but I suppose it's a side effect of being so close to the sun."

I frowned. "What, like a sunburn but worse?" I paused when, upon taking a breath, I noticed a terrible odor in the air. "Oh, God, what's that smell?"

"It's the Steward," said the Doctor, still sonic-ing the control panel. "Wait a minute. There's another sun filter programmed to descend. I'll be back!"

The Doctor took off round the corner, leaving myself, Jabe, and the little helpers standing in the still smokey hallway. "What did she mean about the Steward?" I asked Jabe. "I don't understand."

Jabe's face fell and she looked at the ground. "I think the Steward's dead. With the sun filter down, he would have vaporized in a matter of seconds. We'll have to tell the other guests."

The computer announced a reminder regarding the Earth's destruction as Jabe and I reentered the main viewing room. She called for everyone to be quiet and calm before breaking the news. "I'm afraid the Steward is dead."

The Moxx of Balhoon gasped. "Who killed him?"

"This whole event was sponsored by the Face of Boe," said Lady Cassandra. " _He_ invited us. Talk to the Face! Talk to the Face!"

I felt a gust of wind blow past me; I turned and saw the Doctor at my side, her face hard and serious. She was still holding the metal spider and held it up so everyone could it. "Easy way of finding out. Someone brought their little pet on board." Dropping the thing onto the floor, the Doctor put an arm around my shoulders and rested her other hand on her hip. "Let's send him back to master."

Everyone watched with baited breath as the little spider scuttled around the room, first in Cassandra's direction, and then across the room where the Adherents of the Repeated Meme stood. But something told me that wasn't quite right. I looked back at Cassandra and tilted my head to the side, thinking.

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully. "That's all very well and really kind of obvious, but if you stop and think about it?" She approached the Adherent at the very front of the group and it raised an arm in response, enormous metal claws curving out from the under the cover of its long, black sleeve. Catching the Adherent's arm, the Doctor suddenly yanked her own arms back and ripped the metal arm from its body, leaving a mass of fries and tubes sticking out of the end. "A Repeated Meme is just an idea. And that's all they are - an idea."

Grabbing one of the wire encircled tubes in the arm, the Doctor pulled on it and the remaining Adherents dropped to the floor, lifeless. "They're remote controlled Droids. Nice little cover for the real troublemaker." Dropping the arm and turning her attention to the little spider standing nearby, the Doctor nudged it with her foot. "Go on, Jimbo. Go home."

The spider looked up at the Doctor and seemed to think for a moment, then looked straight ahead and scurried towards Cassandra. It stopped at the base of her frame and beeped.

Cassandra grimaced. "I bet you were the school swot and never got kissed."

The Doctor smirked. "You might be surprised."

"At arms!" Cassandra ordered and her attendants took up a defensive position, their moisturizer sprayers aimed at the Doctor and I.

The Doctor laughed, but didn't hesitate to step in front of me, her hand lightly gripping my waist and effectively keeping me pressed against her back. I peeked around her shoulder. "What are you going to do, moisturize me?" the Time Lady asked, her tone light but her fingers firm on my hip.

Cassandra laughed humorlessly. "With acid. But you're too late anyway, Doctor. My spiders have control of the mainframe. You all carried them as gifts, tax-free, past every code wall. I'm not just as pretty face."

"Sabotaging a ship while you're still inside it? How stupid's that?"

"I'd hoped to manufacture a hostage situation with myself as one of the victims," Cassandra explained, narrowing her eyes at the Doctor for her woman's rudeness. "The compensation would have been enormous!"

"Five billion years and it still comes down to money. You humans never change."

"Do you think it's cheap, looking like this? Flatness costs a fortune. I am the last human, Doctor. _Me!_ Not that freaky little blonde of yours and certainly not that little girl cowering behind you."

"Arrest her!" shouted the Moxx of Balhoon.

"Oh, shut it, pixie," Cassandra snapped. "I've still got my final option." She went on to explain her master plan: she had invested shares in all the companies that rivaled the ones present on the station, which meant that those shares would triple in value once everyone was killed. "I know the use of teleportation is strictly forbidden, but… I'm such a naughty thing. Spiders! Activate!" A series of distant explosions rocked the station. "Forcefields gone with the planet about to explode. You'll be burnt to a crisp!"

"Safety systems failing," said the computer. "Heat levels rising."

Cassandra laughed. "Bye-bye, darlings!" she called as she and her attendants were beamed out.

The Moxx of Balhoon was shaking in his seat. "Reset the computer! That'll bring the forcefields online again!"

Jabe shook her head. "Only the Steward would know how."

"No," said the Doctor, "we can do it by hand. If we go to the engine room, there should be a system restore switch." Releasing her grip on my waist, the Doctor started for the doors. "Jabe, come on."

An image of Jabe engulfed in flames flashed before my mind's eye. "No!" Ignoring the Doctor and Jabe's confused expressions, I focused instead solely on Jabe and grabbed one of her hands. "You have to stay here."

"Why?"

"You'll die," I blurted.

"What? How do you know that? You're not a Time Lord."

"I just know," I said, squeezing her hand. " _Please_. Stay here."

Jabe nodded seriously, resting her other hand atop mine. "Alright."

The Doctor's hand on my shoulder turned me around and my eyes followed the line of her arm to her shoulder, then up her neck to her face. She wore an expression I'd never seen, nor could I interpret it, but she took my free hand in hers and twined our fingers together.

"Jabe," she said, never tearing her eyes from mine, "keep everyone calm."

As the Doctor and I ran into the hallway, racing for the engine room, I found it incredibly difficult to run with my hand caught in hers. How did her companions manage to run for their lives if they could barely keep up with her? I worked my hand free, explaining to the Time Lady that I couldn't run beside her and match her pace at the same time.

Upon reaching the maintenance duct, the Doctor gestured for me to go first. "How would Jabe have died?" she asked as I stepped past her into the duct.

I doubled over to avoid hitting my head and answered, "She would've caught on fire."

"How?" I stopped to consider the question, only for the Doctor to run into me. Her arm looped around my waist and pulled me back against her body to keep me from falling over. "Don't _stop_ , just answer the question."

"I can't remember! But she was helping you."

"So you saved her from death by fire, but what about you? If you're going to help me, then won't you catch on fire, too? For the love of-! Stop stopping!" the Doctor chided when I halted again.

"I'm sorry! I'm thinking!"

"Don't think, run!"

The computer continued to announce, "Heat levels rising," every few seconds, the temperature growing noticeably warmer so that by the time we burst into the engine room, my forehead was coated with sweat and the air was muggy.

"Heat levels critical," the computer announced.

The fans, which had been rotating at a leisurely pace when we left, were now spinning so rapidly that the resulting breeze tore at my hair and clothes.

"What do we do?" I shouted over the stars whistling of the fans.

"System restoration!" the Doctor called in reply. She pointed across the room to the far wall. "There's a switch there!"

"But how-?" I paused, suddenly recalling the steps necessary for the Doctor reach the switch. I turned to my right towards the metal box, expecting to find a lever but instead finding nothing but the exposed panel of wiring that the Doctor had tampered with. "There's supposed to be a lever!"

The Doctor patted her hands along the box, trying to find something to rip off and finally found another panel, which she quickly discarded over her shoulder. She grabbed the lever and pulled it down so it was perpendicular to the box, then turned and started towards the fans. The lever had caused them to slow down, but before the Doctor could advance very far the lever popped back up on its own. I pulled down on the lever with all my strength, feeling it lock into place but still strain against my grip.

The Doctor was by my side, trying to pull me away from the lever. "You can't! The heat's going to vent through this place! It'll burn you!"

"How else are you going to get across?"

It was easy to get lost in the Time Lady's eyes as she gazed down at me, fear, worry, and realization sparking inside them. "Aren't you scared?"

I nodded. "Terrified."

Pulling her jacket off as fast as possible, the Doctor made me release the lever so she could wrap my hands up. "This is the best I can do." Taking my chin in her hand, the Doctor tilted my head back so I would look into her eyes again. "If you get hurt, just let go. Promise me!"

"I promise."

The computer was barely audible above the sound of the fans. "Heat levels hazardous. Heat levels hazardous."

The Doctor turned back to the fans and advanced again. I pulled the lever down and leaned forward so the weight of my upper body could help keep it in place. Sweat dripped down my temples and neck, a few droplets landing on the Doctor's jacket and then vaporizing a second later.

"Shields malfunction. Heat levels critical."

The Doctor made it past the first and second fans in a matter of seconds, but by the time she reached the third one, the heat had started to seep through her jacket and burn my hands. I tried to hold on for as long as I could, grinding my teeth against the pain, but it was too much to withstand just a few heartbeats later. I cried out as I released the lever, the jacket sliding to the floor to reveal my palms covered in light sores where the heat had started to burn my skin. Sweat mixed with tears as I inspected my trembling hands.

I looked up, trying to find the Doctor through the blur of the spinning fans, barely able to make out her silhouette. She was still standing in front of the last fan. A sob bubbled up in my throat as I gathered the Doctor's jacket again, trying to wrap it around my hands and whimpering when pain shot up my arms. I rushed to the lever and tried to wrap even just one finger around the handle, wanting to finish my task and help the Doctor as best I could, but the pain was beyond anything I had ever felt before and I couldn't pull it down more than an inch.

Then I felt something. There was a change in not just the air, but the entirety of my surroundings. It wasn't a temperature change or a lessening of the wind, but something different and new. As I turned my head to look for the Doctor, I realized that what had changed was time itself. The rotation of the fans had slowed, my heartbeat had slowed, even the distant sound of the computer announcing the death of the planet had slowed enough that the words were almost incomprehensible. The Doctor stepped forward between one blade and the next, and it stole my breath away.

Just like that, the moment was gone and time returned to normal. The Doctor seemed frozen on the other side of the fan, then dashed across the platform to the wall and yanked the lever down.

"Shields raised," said the computer. "Exoglass repair initiated."

I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, so I settled for both and my legs gave out. My knees smacked hard against the floor when I landed, pain radiating through my bones and echoing throughout my entire body. The heat was already starting to lessen and soon enough, a cool, gentle breeze drifted through the engine room.

"Let me see," said the Doctor, kneeling in front of me with her hands hovering over mine. I hiccuped and uncurled my fingers to reveal my palms, red and lightly blistered. "Oh, your hands."

"It hurts," I sobbed.

"I know." The Doctor closed her eyes as a golden-orange glow began to manifest around her hands. "I'll fix you up, love. It's okay."

I watched the glow expand so that it enveloped my hands. "T-That's-"

"Shh."

The regeneration energy dissipated and the Doctor pulled me into her arms, resting her chin on my head as I cried into her chest. Her fingers delved into my hair, holding the back of my head steady. I wrapped my arms around her torso, clinging to her body as if my life depended on it, drawing us as close together as possible because I desperately needed to feel close to someone.

The muscles in my stomach seized up and I jolted in the Doctor's arms, feeling the rest of my muscles cramp and my joints lock in place. I grunted painfully and the Doctor pulled back, looking over my face and body to find the problem. She moved one hand to rest against my cheek.

"You're fading," she said with tears in her eyes.

"It hurts," I whispered.

"I know. I know, I'm sorry."

Pain blossomed along my spine as if I'd been sliced in half. "Make it stop!"

"I'm sorry."

"Doctor!"

I tried to grab onto her shirt, tried to find purchase on anything in sight to counter the pain, but I couldn't hold onto anything. I fell through the Doctor's arms as if I were a cloud, untouchable and forever floating away, and her face dissolved into nothingness. Everything was suddenly nothing and I was stuck in it, weightless in the nothingness of time and space.

* * *

On a regular street in London stood two women, one tall and dark, and the other small and pink. Rose Tyler reached out and took the Doctor's hand.

"You think it'll last forever," said the Doctor, her eyes bloodshot, "people and cars and concrete, but it won't. One day it's all gone. Even the sky." She looked Rose in the eye. "My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust before its time.

"I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm the only one left."

"What about Diana?"

The Doctor smiled to hide her tears. "She's all I've got, but sometimes… sometimes I don't even have her. She just fades away and I have nothing left. Just an empty box."

Rose smiled. "There's me."

"You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?"

"I don't know." Rose looked down at their joined hands. "I want… I think I want to stay. With you. Will Diana come back?"

"Oh, she'll turn up eventually. The trouble is finding her."

Rose laughed and squeezed the Doctor's hand. "Then we'll find her together. But first, I want chips."

* * *

 **Author's Note: I had a surprising amount of fun working on this chapter! I'd really appreciate any reviews you guys feel like leaving, even if it's just to correct something. Up next, we're traveling into the realm of Classic Who!**


	10. The Wraiths of the Under World

My head slammed hard against stone and the impact echoed inside my skull, making my ears ring and my vision go blurry. I swore under my breath, tears leaking down the sides of my face towards my neck. Rubbing my eyes and wiping the tears away about a minute later, I rolled onto my side and tried to figure out where I was. My vision went in and out of focus a few times before finally clearing up.

"Where the-?"

There wasn't very much light, but what little there was was tinted slightly blue. About a foot away from my face was a tall, thick pillar carved in a Greek style with vines wrapping around the entire length, cracks and chips barely visible past the vines. I tried to sit up to view the rest of my surroundings, but was overwhelmed with the most horrible headache I had ever experienced and groaned loudly.

A scream suddenly echoed around me and I jolted into an upright position, looking around frantically and trying to not give in to the temptation to throw up or pass out. The room I had been deposited in was about the size of a small courtyard and was lined with more Greek stylized pillars. Across the room, in between two pillars, a figured shrouded in shadow glided in and out of sight. There were no features that were identifiable except for a large, semi-circle object placed behind the figure's head.

 _Time Lords?_ Holding a hand to my head in an attempt to suppress the endless pounding, I struggled to my feet and braced myself against a pillar. _I don't understand. Am… Am I on Gallifrey? Was that even a Time Lord?_

"Exterminate!"

I gasped and stumbled backwards into the shadows, unsure of the source of the war cry but knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that I needed to get the hell out of there and _fast_. Running proved difficult after just a few steps, however, because I was overwhelmed by another dizzy spell. The Dalek screamed again and I forced myself to stumble onwards, hidden in the shadows as I raced along the gentle curve of the wall.

Finally I came to the opposite end of the courtyard, standing between the two pillars where I thought I'd seen a Time Lord silhouette. I looked into the light, emanating from somewhere down a short corridor, but couldn't make anything out. I stepped back into the shadows and searched along the ground for anything I could use as a weapon: a stick, a rock, even a piece of vine might prove to be useful! In the end, I settled for a chunk of pillar that was light enough to lift and throw, but heavy enough to do damage if thrown at someone's head.

Just beyond the corridor was another small courtyard lined with pillars and I practically flung myself into the shadows the moment I passed the corridor's end. I pressed myself against the wall and looked around, trying to determine where I was or find something recognizable.

Another scream pierced the eery silence, only this time it was much closer. Gliding towards me like a ghost was the luminescent, half-visible figure of a Time Lord, his mouth agape and his eyes widened in terror. I screamed and bolted in the opposite direction, only to find myself running towards a Weeping Angel. I screamed again, launching the chunk of pillar as hard and far as I could, and scrambled into the center of the courtyard with my eyes locked on the Angel.

The sound of bare feet clapping against stone startled me and I instinctively turned towards the sound. When no one came into view, I turned around again and choked on my own tongue upon seeing the Angel reaching out for me, its body mostly covered in shadow but the very tips of its clawed fingers bathed in the white light that shone from somewhere above. My eyelids trembled as I fought the urge to blink, instead very slowly closing one eye whilst keeping the other fixed on the statue.

"Don't blink!" a voice cried behind me. "Don't turn around! Just- Just reach out behind you. I'll grab your hand." My eyes had started watering again as I stretched my left arm out, fingers grasping wildly at empty air. "I'm going to take your hand now. _Don't blink_."

Cold fingers curled around my hand and I strained to keep at least one eye fixed on the Angel. The person who had grabbed hold of me released me for a second, leaving me frantically searching for them until they took my hand a second time. I turned my body towards them, but kept my head fixed in place so the Angel was still in plain sight, my other hand searching blindly for their arm.

"You can blink now. I can see it." I sighed in relief and closed my eyes, savoring the darkness. "They say that nothing in here can really hurt you, but… sometimes the things down here are a little too alive."

I turned to thank my rescuer and froze upon seeing their face. There was something about the… man? standing before me that seemed oddly familiar despite the fact that I had never seen him before. Dark hair had been slicked back over his head and bright, curious eyes rested heavily on the Angel that still loomed somewhere behind me.

"You scream incredibly loudly for someone who shouldn't want to be found."

"Do I know you?"

The young man laughed and shook his head. "No, I'm sure I would've remembered meeting someone as _wrong_ as you."

I frowned, taken aback by his confusingly rude remark. "What's wrong with me?"

"As if you don't know. Can you look at it now?"

I looked over my shoulder at the Angel. It hadn't moved, but just the sight of its fingertips made me feel sick to my stomach. "Yeah," I croaked. "I got it."

"I have a way out," the man said, slowly pulling me backwards. "I'll share it with you if you keep watching that thing."

The longest minute of my life passed with the young man guiding me by his voice and his hands clasped around mine, while I kept my eyes locked on the Angel. When it was out of sight behind a corner, the man dropped my hand and heaved a sigh of relief.

"We don't have to look anymore. It won't follow us out here."

I refused to look away from the corridor. "It won't?"

"No. I've passed it before. It never moves beyond its sanctioned area, but I don't like to leave these things to chance." He chuckled. "Better safe than sorry, eh?"

Brushing my hair out of my face and taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I took a deep breath and finally turned to face the man. He stood about three inches taller than me, of a thin build and wearing some of the strangest clothes I'd ever seen. The first thing I noticed was that he wasn't wearing any shoes and his feet were covered in dirt. He wore dark, loose-fitting trousers, a belt, and a wine red blouse.

When I looked at his face, I stepped back in surprise because he was staring intently at me, his eyes impossibly wide. "It's you," he murmured.

"What?"

"I should've known. The last time I felt this, it was when I saw you."

"I don't know what you're talking about or who you even are," I said, retreating another few paces.

"But it was definitely you I saw! At the river! That was years ago," the man said, his eyes wandering across my face. "Everything makes sense now. When I touched you, it was so wrong. I didn't even think about it, but I remember that feeling hanging in the air the last time we met. You're wrong. Everything about you is wrong."

My arms crossed over my chest as I hugged myself, my body starting to fold in on itself as the man stared at me. He smiled, his head tilted to one side. "What are you?" he asked.

"What are you?" I countered defensively. "A dick?"

"What's that?"

I laughed humorlessly, my eyes darting around the room the man had led us to. "Never mind. Can we get out of here, please?"

"Not until you tell me what you are."

"Ugh, screw you." I scowled and started for the other side of the room, giving the man a wide berth in case he tried to move towards me.

"That's not the way out."

"Well, I don't like you, so I don't care." I really, really did care, but I also hated men who acted _exactly_ like him. I decided to find my own way out instead. If I kept searching, maybe I could find an exit or a way to contact someone-. "Oh, I'm so stupid!" I reached for my the back pocket of my jeans and smiled when my fingers closed around my phone. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Doctor!"

"Doctor who?" The man had come up behind me while I was distracted, his voice sounding in my ear and making me yelp in surprise. He snatched the phone out of my hands. "What's this?"

I spun around, my pulse hammering loudly inside my head, and swatted at the man's arm. "Give that back!" I lunged forward, but was shoved back when he caught me by the shoulder with his free hand. "Stop! I need that!"

The man ignored me, having already unlocked the phone and was starting to snoop through my messages. "I've never seen something like this before. It's looks… like Earth technology." Finally looking away from my phone, the man turned to me. "Are you curious about Earth, too? You didn't make this, did you?"

"It's a phone and it's mine, so give it back!"

The man smirked and held the phone over his head so that, despite him only being a few inches taller, I couldn't reach it no matter what I tried. "I'll return this if you'll at least tell me what you're doing down here."

"You wouldn't believe me. I hardly believe it myself." I could see in the man's eyes that he still wanted an answer, so I sighed. "I don't really know how I got here. I just did. I know it sounds like I'm just making this up as I go, but I swear I don't. All I know is that I travel somehow, but I don't know how or why or how control it."

The man frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I didn't say it would make sense," I grumbled. "Now can you please give me back my phone? I really need it!"

True to his word, the young man lowered his arm and allowed me to snatch the phone from his hand. He watched as I searched for the Doctor's contact, then said, "You're not a Time Lord, are you?"

My thumbs froze, hovering over the phone's dimly lit screen. "Time Lord?"

"I've met other Time Lords and they're nothing like you, they're perfectly normal, but I don't know how else to explain why you are the way that you are."

"Now you're not making sense."

The man's hand shot out and grabbed me by the wrist. He stepped forward whilst simultaneously tugging me towards him, his eyes shut. When I protested and tried to pull away, he shushed me and placed his free hand on my elbow to keep my arm steady.

"One heart," he murmured. His eyes flew open with a gasp a heartbeat later, my arm slipping from his grasp to hang at my side. "You're human," he said, awestruck. "How did you get here? No human has ever been on Gallifrey before."

"I-I don't know!" I stammered. "I can't explain it! I just come and go, I don't- Wait. Wait, Gallifrey? I'm on Gallifrey?" The man nodded seriously. "Who are you?"

"You can call me Theta Sigma. Everyone else does."

In that moment, it seemed as thought the entire universe had skidded to a halt. My eyes frantically searched the man's face for anything that I might recognize him by, a certain scowl or the particular furrowing of his eyebrows, but he looked nothing like he should have. His skin was a shade darker than mine, his features appearing more East Asian than European like I had expected from the First Doctor. It was then that I wondered if I would ever recognize the Doctor in the future if their incarnations continued to follow the ongoing pattern of looking either feminine or non-European.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" the young Doctor inquired.

I quickly diverted my gaze elsewhere. "Like what?"

"Like you know me. You said you'd never seen me before."

"I haven't."

Theta frowned. He rubbed his forefinger against his chin, lips pursed, and I knew immediately that he _was_ the Doctor. Or, at least, that he would be one day. "You're very strange," he said. "But luckily for you, those are the only people I care to associate myself with. Come on. I'll show you the way out."

As we walked, Theta Sigma explained to me where I was: the Cloisters, far beneath the Capitol. He told me that he came to the Cloisters looking for adventure and answers to all of his unanswered questions, and figured out how to talk to the Wraiths and Sliders, the ghosts of dead Time Lords whose preserved brain waves were projected into the Cloisters to serve as guard dogs. I was curious to learn more about what Theta had discovered among the misty, haunted courtyards, but hesitated to ask very many questions due to his patronizing explanations.

The exit turned out to be slab of machinery laid into the stone floor at the center of the Cloisters with Circular Gallifreyan script carved into the surface. "The Wraiths told me how to escape," said Theta, falling to his knees and ghosting his fingers along the writing. "If I can open these doors, it should open to a tunnel that will lead us out of the Capitol."

I followed his example and knelt at the edge of the slab, watching his fingertips leave trails in the dirt. "What does it say?" I asked, pointing to the foreign script.

"Can't you read it?"

"No. What makes you think I know how?"

Theta glanced up from his work, his brows furrowing. "If you can speak Gallifreyan, then you should be able to read it."

"But I can't speak Gallifreyan, Th-Theta." His name felt strange and alien in my mouth despite the fact that I knew it originated from a human language.

Chuckling softly, Theta Sigma focused his attention on the carvings in the floor. "Earth humor is very strange."

"I didn't make a joke. I'm speaking English."

"Then how can I understand you, hm?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but said nothing because I realized that I didn't know. I frowned and suddenly recalled the things Rose and the Doctor had said mere hours ago. Thrilled that I knew something valuable, I snapped my fingers and sat up straight with a laugh. "The TARDIS! She gets in your head and translates. She must still be doing that for me."

Theta stopped his movements again. "You have your own TARDIS?"

"No, it's the Doctor's- I mean! I-I mean, it's my friend's."

"This Doctor, you mentioned them before. Who are they? A Time Lord? A renegade?" he asked, growing more and more excited with each word.

"She's just a friend." I locked my eyes onto the hills and valleys of dust that Theta had created, not wanting to say more. My memories of the Doctor's adventures were still somewhat hazy, a few key details seeping through and easily accessible with most of them locked away somewhere in the back of my mind, but I knew that Theta discovering too much about his future could be dangerous. "That's all."

"Will she come for you?"

"I don't think she even knows I'm here. I was going to call her, but - well, I got distracted."

"You were going to contact her with that device?" Theta asked; I nodded. "Even if the signal made it past all the shields and restrictions and forcefields, it would still be detected. You'd be lucky if the Time Lords _only_ threw you in prison."

Defeated, my shoulders slumped and I ran my hands down my face, ignoring the way my glasses shifted and distorted my vision when my fingers bumped into them. "I don't want to stay here. I don't even know how long I'll be here."

"You don't seem to know much about anything."

I scowled. "Well, I know you're rude."

"Must be a human characteristic," Theta said to himself, ignoring me completely.

"I can hear you!" Grumpily crossing my arms over my chest, I mumbled, "I liked you better as the Doctor," too irritated to care about preserving timelines.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Theta worked the doors open several minutes later. The mechanic slab opened up straight down the middle and slid apart, leaving an opening in the floor that revealed a passageway dimly lit in hues of orange and yellow. Theta dropped inside first, then myself, and I was overwhelmed with mental images of the console room and the Doctor. Although I had known the Doctor for no more than two days, I already missed her. She was the _only_ person I really knew in my new home. She and the TARDIS were familiar and welcoming, and I was on an alien planet with a man who irritated me to no end. I didn't care where we went or what we did, I only wanted to be with someone in a place that didn't leave me quaking in my boots.

"If I did call the Doctor, do you think the Time Lords would intercept it or would I be able to get through before they found me?"

"That depends on how good your device is." Theta pointed down the right side of the passageway. "This way. I think. With any luck, we'll be out of this tunnel in a matter of days!"

" _Days?_ " I retrieved my phone, unlocking it and letting my thumb hover over the call button as the Doctor's contact information lit up my face. Would it be worth it to try and contact the Doctor? "I really don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be stuck here for days in this tunnel! If… If I can call the Doctor, if she can find me-"

"You're willing to risk imprisonment just to get off this planet?"

I caught Theta's dark eyes in the sunset colored lighting. "Gallifrey scares me. The Time Lords scare me. This place is terrifying and I don't belong here. You said so yourself." The light on my screen faded from inactivity and I tapped the screen, illuminating the Doctor's number again.

It took me a moment to realize that I had, in fact, pressed the call button. Half in shock, I held the phone up to my ear and listened to it ring. It rang, and rang, and rang. After nearly a minute, I feared that it would either never stop ringing or the call would be cancelled and I would turn around to find a Time Lord standing ready to arrest me. But then the receiver crackled and there was silence.

The voice that answered me sounded tired, old, and confused. "Hello?"

"Doctor?"

"Who is this?"

I glanced at Theta, who watched me with silent curiosity. "Um, i-it's Diana. Is this the Doctor?"

There was a moment of silence. "Diana?"

I was having trouble discerning the voice was male or female, but I was sure that I didn't recognize it from either of the Doctor's incarnations that I had met. "Yes. Please, can you give me to the Doctor? I'm lost - well, not really lost, stuck. I'm on Gallifrey and I need to get out of here. I thought that maybe the Doctor could come and get me. I-Is she there? Or he? They?" I added, sparing Theta a glance.

"Where are you?"

"Under the Cloisters. There's a tunnel-"

The sound of the TARDIS materializing cut me off before I could finish speaking. A harsh wind whipped through the tunnel and the winds grew stronger and the TARDIS continued to groan, I noticed that my surroundings were beginning to change. The tunnel, the orange-yellow lights, and even Theta Sigma were quickly replaced by white and grey roundels, faint, white lights, and the skeletal outlines of the TARDIS' console room. In the center of the surprisingly small room was the console and standing beside it was a woman with shockingly white hair cut short and dressed in dusty clothes. Her face was unfamiliar, but as I looked over her clothes I began to suspect that I knew exactly which incarnation had come to my rescue.

The Doctor looked small inside her battered, brown leather jacket and the tattered cloth tied around her throat threatened to swallow her entire face. The doors rattled on their hinges and I turned towards the sound to see them shaking slightly. Theta Sigma was banging against them, calling to whoever would listen that he wanted to be let inside. The Doctor glanced at the console, flipped a switch, and looked back at me as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

As she stared mutely at me, I realized that my phone was still pressed against my ear and sheepishly, I locked the screen and slipped back into my pocket. "Thank you," I said when she remained silent. "I-I didn't think it would actually work. I thought the Time Lords were going to throw me in jail or somethi-"

"It's really you."

"I'm sorry?"

The Doctor shook her head in disbelief, her eyes beginning to well with tears. "After all this time," she said with a low, strained voice. "I never thought-…"

"Doctor?"

At first, the Doctor took a few hesitant steps in my direction, her hands clasped nervously in front of her. Then she stopped and looked at me again. I said her name again and she winced, but then she strode forward and took my face in her hands. She had the most incredible dark grey eyes I had ever seen, but they were sad and tired.

"I've missed you," she said.

I was drawn into a firm embrace with the Doctor's hands moving to cup the back of my head. My face was caught between her cheek and her shoulder, and when she took in a shuddering breath, I felt it reverberate throughout her entire body. She coughed to cover her sudden case of the sniffles and I discovered that the most unbearable sound in the whole universe was that of a broken, crying woman.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I'm sorry that this chapter is a little shorter. It's just under 4k words, but it felt right to end it here. (It also gives me some more time to figure out what I'm going to do in the next chapter.)**

 **The artist whose work originally inspired this story did a piece of the War Doctor, but I can't remember which ethnicity she said she was trying to portray in her work. I think she said Jewish, so I tried to think of a Jewish actress who fit the image of the Doctor that I had pictured. It turns out that Jamie Lee Curtis is half Jewish, so there you go, folks!**

 **Don't forget to leave a review to let me know what you think! Your feedback is seriously helpful and greatly appreciated.**


	11. A Variation of War

**Author's Note: I came up with the idea for the title of this chapter because, apart from listening to a few lovey-dovey Disney songs during certain scenes & some tracks from the 'Day of the Doctor' soundtrack, I listened to a version of 'Aria of the Goldberg Variations' slowed down 6.66 times. (Apparently, it's a thing from that show Hannibal?) And who knows? Maybe the title is more than just a title.**

 **Sorry, again, for the shorter length of this chapter. I promise I'm not making them smaller on purpose.**

 **Please also keep in mind that death is dealt with in this chapter in a very serious manner. Don't read the rest of the chapter if you think it might mess with you.**

* * *

An eruption sounded as the TARDIS shuddered, her engines grinding loudly as chaos suddenly rained down upon us. The ship lurched to one side and then the other, tossing the Doctor and I around like rag dolls. I threw my arms around one of the coral support beams and clung to it desperately as the Doctor grabbed hold of the console. Another eruption sounded from somewhere outside the TARDIS, sparks snapping from the ceiling as the lights flickered.

"Doctor!" I shouted, terrified.

The TARDIS lurched again and I was thrown to the floor, my glasses knocked off from the force of my landing and skidding a few feet away. The ship shuddered once more, groaned, and then fell silent. I looked up from the floor, spotting the Doctor still in place by the console, and braced myself for another explosion that never came.

"D-Doctor?"

"It's alright," she said, her back turned to me. "It's alright. They've stopped."

I slipped my glasses back on and pushed myself onto my knees. "Who?"

"The Time Lords." She took hold of the scanner and dragged it across the console so it was positioned right in front of her. On it was an image of the time vortex with a simple, silver cylinder floating inside it.

"Were they shooting at us or something?" I asked, finally standing and moving to stand next to the Doctor.

"Or something. Not only did I break a cardinal rule by traveling into Gallifrey's past to save you, but they seem to be under the impression that you're a temporal criminal." The Doctor's eyes narrowed as she read through the words scrolling by at the bottom of the screen. I thought, for a moment, that the message was written in Greek, but blamed the suspicion on the headache that had started in my temples. "The CIA wants to take you into custody."

"But I haven't done anything!"

"You'd think," the Doctor scoffed, "that with a Time War on their hands they would have better things to do than chase us down!"

I looked from the screen to the Doctor, nervously wringing my hands as I asked, "What are you going to do?"

With a flourish of her hand, the Doctor had set a new destination and the TARDIS jolted as she shot through the vortex like a bullet. I grabbed onto the lip of the console with my feet planted firmly on the floor, hoping I wouldn't get knocked around again if the TARDIS started pitching again. The ship landed with a wheeze a moment later, but the Doctor had already set in another destination and sent us back into the vortex.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to throw them off our scent."

The Doctor landed several more times, never staying more than a second in each place before dematerializing the TARDIS and sending us somewhere new. My headache, which was at first a mild irritation, had blossomed into a pulsating migraine by the time the Doctor landed for good and I found myself swaying long after the ship had stopped moving.

"Are you alright?"

I shook my head, but immediately regretted doing so. "No," I groaned, my hands pressed against my forehead. "I feel terrible."

The Doctor's hands were suddenly on my face, brushing my hands away so she could inspect me herself. After about a minute of gentle pressing, feeling, and inquiring as to how I felt, the Doctor let out a heavy sigh and retreated. "This is my fault," she said. "It seems like you already hurt your head beforehand, but the reason you're so sick? That's my doing."

I exclaimed painfully as the throbbing in my skull worsened, doubling over when it became to difficult to stand. The Doctor caught me as I fell forward and wrapped her arms around me. "What did you do to me?" I groaned.

"The inside of the TARDIS is nearly a minute out of sync with the exterior. We're about a minute into the future. But the different time zones are wreaking havoc on your body, affecting the chronons in your blood. If you stay in here much longer, you'll get seriously ill." At that point it became too painful to speak, so instead I yelled, my legs buckling under the weight of my body. Only the Doctor kept me from collapsing. "We have to get you outside. Quickly."

How I ended up outside the TARDIS, I could never remember, but my headache began to ease up within seconds and that was how I found myself turned over the Doctor's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Still feeling slightly dizzy, I pressed a hand to my head and sighed. The uncomfortable position I had been placed it left me with a view of the ground and the Doctor's rear, which I most definitely did not want to be forced to stare at.

"How do you feel now?"

I grunted when the Doctor jolted beneath me, rocking my body and aggravating my dizzy spell. "Stop moving," I hissed.

"The farther away you are from the TARDIS, the better."

I lifted my head and looked around, grimacing against the distant pain in my forehead as I took in our surroundings. The TARDIS stood several meters away on flat ground, the same reddish-brown dust and pebbles that the Doctor's shoes were crunching on. The sky was the color of cardboard, littered with clouds that veiled two bright points in the sky. They looked like suns, but were so small and so little light peeked through the clouds that I couldn't be sure. Miles past the TARDIS was a jagged mountain range a few shades darker than the rest of the environment, the tallest peaks covered by pale brown clouds. There was no vegetation, no sign of animal life, let alone intelligent life.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Pastru. Over a billion light years away from Gallifrey." The Doctor paused and rested a hand on the back of my calf. "There's a rock here. Would you like to sit down?"

"Please."

I pretended not to hear the Doctor's little grunts as she crouched down and helped me slide off her shoulder. I knew it wasn't easy heaving two hundred plus pounds of dead weight. She firmly grasped my hands and lowered me to a large, mostly-red rock. Once I was seated, I stole a quick look around and realized that my little rock was just the starting point of a massive field of boulders. Many of the boulders were about the same height as the TARDIS, give or take a foot or two, and as broad as a suburban family's four-door Prius was from front to back, but a great deal more surpassed the size of houses.

The planet was uncomfortably quiet and still, the only noticeable sound being the whistling of the wind. Even the Cloisters weren't entirely devoid of sound; I had been able to hear the distant cries of Time Lord ghosts or the echoing of my own footsteps. I shivered involuntarily. _There's something about this planet_ , I mused.

The Doctor seemed to notice that I was uncomfortable because she asked, "What's wrong?"

I had unconsciously moved my hands so they were ghosting along the exposed skin of my arms as if to warm myself. Frowning, I lowered my arms so they lay in my lap instead and sighed. "Nothing. I feel better now. Thank you."

"But?"

My eyes trailed along the jagged outline of the far-off mountains, then fell to the flat line of the horizon where the mountains faded into hills and then nothing. "But I… have a weird feeling about this place," I admitted. "Everything feels off somehow. I can't explain it."

"It's the lack of life on this planet. To any being accustomed to plants, animals, other intelligent species, this planet would seem like a desolate wasteland."

"It _is_ a desolate wasteland."

The Doctor hummed. "Perhaps. You never know the shape that life will take in the outermost corners of the universe."

The wind seemed to turn colder and I shivered again, this time as a result of the temperature.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, a red light on the console began flashing in time with the accompanying alarm. The scanner came to life with a snap of electricity and showed the empty console room a view of two ships inside the time vortex hurtling towardsPastru, the first ship belonged to the Time Lords and the second…

* * *

"What's that sound?" I asked, sitting up a little straighter. There was something more than just the wind whipping across the plain that lay between us and the TARDIS. "Is that the TARDIS?"

"It shouldn't be." A slender, silver cylinder materialized near the Doctor's TARDIS and I jumped to my feet, gasping in shock. "The Time Lords. Quick!"

Latching onto my hand, the Doctor bolted past me and ran for the nearest boulder. She dove to the ground and I fell with her, both of us landing on our sides with a collective grunt. As I pushed myself into a sitting position, I noticed that the Doctor had dropped my hand and that the ground had at some point turned from dirt and pebbles to red-brown gravel. The Doctor had already positioned herself with her torso pressed against the boulder, the very top of her head peeking over the top.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, scooting across the gravel so my back was against the boulder and my knees were drawn halfway to my chest.

"We could make a break for the TARDIS. They wouldn't be able to do anything to us until we draw closer, but… they'll have weapons."

"We can't just wait them out, can we?" The Doctor shook her head. "So, how will we get back to the TARDIS?"

Before the Doctor could formulate a response, the metallic shrieking of genocidal pepper pots exploded across the plain. Breaking through the clouds was a Dalek saucer and at least a dozen Daleks had already exited the ship, flying towards the surface on hovering mechanism, all the while screaming, "THE DOC-TOR IS DE-TECT-ED!"

The Doctor's mouth fell open. "No," she breathed. " _No._ " She looked at me and I could see that her eyes were welling with tears.

Electric red blasts of energy rained down all around us, soon accompanied by broken shards of rock. The Doctor threw herself at me, cupping my head in her hands as we fell over, her body on top of mine. I curled myself into a ball, hiding behind her as dust and rock pattered against her leather coat like heavy rainfall. When there was a pause in the attacks, the Doctor lifted her head and looked around.

Deciding the coast was clear for the moment, the Doctor moved into a crouching position and pulled me up. "We have to run for the TARDIS. Run as fast as you can and don't stop. Don't run in a straight line. Make it impossible to target you. Do you understand?" I nodded mutely. "Run!"

The Doctor hauled me to the feet alongside her, then pushed me in the TARDIS' direction. I could hear her shouting as I ran, announcing her position to the Daleks, mocking and provoking them. A bolt of Dalek fire hit the ground behind me, pebbles whacking against my back. I darted to the right, then to the left, pushing myself to run faster than I ever had in my entire life. The TARDIS drew steadily closer with each thundering step I took and for a single, beautiful moment, I had hope that I would make it.

A Dalek swooped down from the sky and landed to my right, screaming incoherently. I froze for just a moment, distracted and scared out of my mind, then stuttered forward on unsteady legs, missing its blast by a hairsbreadth. The TARDIS was so, so close.

* * *

There was a woman who had once called herself the Doctor long, long ago. She hadn't felt like the Doctor in years and she certainly didn't feel any closer to the title on the plains of Pastru. She knew that she wouldn't survive this encounter with the Daleks, even if, for some reason, the CIA decided to help her, but she was not about to give up with Diana's life on the line. She would keep regenerating, keep distracting the Daleks until her hearts finally stopped beating just to ensure that her beloved human lived.

A Dalek swooped low over the boulder patch, too close for comfort, and the Doctor followed the creature with her sonic, disrupting its primary functions like she had with the Daleks that flown into range. If she got lucky, maybe some of them would shoot each other or crash and _just maybe_ she would live to see another day.

The Warrior, as the former Doctor had taken to calling herself, felt her hearts freeze when a bloodcurdling scream pierced through the chaos. She spun towards the TARDIS, time slowing as she searched the whirlwinds of dust and Dalek for the source. A body flew through the air and slammed into the TARDIS doors, shaking the Warrior to her very core. She squinted and raised a hand to shade her eyes from the light of the double suns overhead. A shock of blue hair seemed to call out to her from the ground.

It couldn't be… Could it?

The Warrior surged forward, her hearts hammering within her chest as she prayed to every deity she had ever heard of or encountered, begging that her worst fears hadn't just come to life before her very eyes.

She didn't recall when it had started, but the Warrior was crying by the time she reached the TARDIS. She couldn't breathe or think or feel, she could only stare at the dead body of the woman she loved strewn out at her feet. The Warrior fell to her knees, her hands trembling. She started to reach for Diana's extended arm, but pulled back when she realized that the pale hand buried in the dirt would be lifeless and still warm with the memory of her life force.

The Warrior fell forward onto her hands, her sobs rocking her body. She screamed and beat her fist against the ground. Diana was dead and it was her doing. She had set the TARDIS interior and exterior out of sync, she had taken them to Pastru, she had joined the Time War willingly all those years ago and now the Universe was repaying her.

No more, she decided. There would be no more war, no more Daleks, no more CIA or war-thirsting Time Lords. They had led her to this very moment and she would reign hell upon their lives.

* * *

When the Warrior next entered her TARDIS, the Pastru rains had drenched her to the bone and washed away the Dalek and Time Lord blood streaked across her face. As she took her beloved's body into her arms, she noticed the small Tares Feni that had crawled from the dirt onto Diana's bare arm and buried its pincers in her flesh. The Warrior gently unhooked the insect's pincers and then crushed it between her fingers. No other living being in the universe would ever touch Diana again, would ever see her face. She would be the last. That was how things were meant to be.

The Warrior laid her wife's body on the floor of the console room. There would be no point in taking her to the sick bay. Hell, the room no longer existed. Like the Doctor, the sick bay had run out its usefulness many years back. But there was nowhere else to place the body. The Warrior mused, then, that perhaps she should make a shrine dedicated to those she'd lost. Perhaps it would finally drive her and her guilty conscience closer to the end of the War and her life.

As she entered a new destination into the computer, the Warrior paused and wondered exactly what she was supposed to do with Diana's body. In all the years they had been together, _somehow_ the topic of her wife's death had never been seriously discussed. There were people in the Warrior's past that had become Diana's second family and there were people in the Warrior's non-existent future that had done the same. Should she contact them? Should she just burn the body as Gallifreyans had been doing for centuries in a final attempt to honor the life of the woman who had deserved far better than a Time Lady with blood on her hands? And what of Miryam? How could she break the news?

The Warrior growled and slammed her fist against the console, fighting back tears. She stole a glance at the body on the floor and found herself doubled over, throwing up her last meal. Diana should be up and about, smiling and asking questions and bantering with her. It was wrong! The Warrior's knees slammed against the floor and she fell sideways onto her rear, her legs slipping to the side. The world seemed to be spinning.

The TARDIS whirred softly and the Warrior's head bobbed slightly. She gripped the edge of the console and for just a moment, the Warrior imagined she could hear the ship crying. She nodded. "I know, old girl."

It was some hours later that the Warrior cleaned herself, the TARDIS floor, and the dead, dusty face of her wife. She had taken the TARDIS to Earth sometime in the 13th century. There were so many times and places on this little blue and green speck that had come to mean something to the Time Lady and her spouse that there was no single resting place greater than another. But she remembered fondly the penchant Diana had for history and culture and the wild, savage beauty of nature, so she told herself that Diana would have loved the place the Warrior finally decided upon.

Deep in the uninhabited forests that would one day surround Diana's hometown, the Doctor built a funeral pyre and dug a tiny grave some meters away. It took her the length of an entire day to cut down and size enough wood for a decent pyre, and the majority of the night to build it. She tried not to think about her beloved's body waiting for her inside the TARDIS, which had been recalibrating for several hours. The Warrior had finally synced the interior and exterior, a too-late gesture of respect in Diana's memory. If she was lucky, then maybe a version of her wife from before the Cloisters would return to her.

The light of a waxing crescent moon shone down on the Warrior, countless billions of stars and a couple of planets shining and twinkling brightly. _Diana would have loved a night like this_ , she thought. _I would have watched the moon set and sun rise with her, and I might have kissed her in the last moment of the twilight hours just to make her smile, but no more._ The Warrior sat down with a sob and cried into her hands.

* * *

A bolt of vortex lightning pricked the center of a dead heart and it began to beat anew. Synapses sparked to life and nerves tingled. A finger twitched, a pair of lungs expanded, eyelids fluttered lightly as the eyes beneath them moved restlessly.

* * *

The Warrior returned for Diana's body just before daybreak, carrying her outside and setting her atop the funeral pyre. She pressed a final kiss to her wife's cold lips and whispered goodbye. Holding the single torch she had crafted and lit, the Warrior whispered an Earth prayer for Diana's soul and then dropped it in the kindling at the base of the pyre.

As the flames grew higher and engulfed Diana's body, the Warrior forced herself to watch. She would watch and remember, and when the War was over, she would join her.


	12. Carry the Fire

The first thought I had upon waking up was, _God, it's hot_. I thought for a moment that I was standing in front of an open fireplace, but when I opened my eyes all I saw was the fading of the night sky into the day. The moon was hanging low in the sky just at the edge of my peripheral vision. As I turned my head to the side to better see my surroundings, I wondered if maybe I'd been whacked in the skull with a hammer because the pain flooding my head was almost unbearable. That was when I noticed the flames.

Lurching forward so I was sitting up, I yelped and looked around frantically to assess the situation. I was on a wooden structure with crackling, yellow flames licking up the side of the structure towards me. I let out a panicked, half strangled scream and scrambled to my feet, then leapt from the structure towards the first patch of not-on-fire ground that my eyes fell upon. The Doctor's frozen figure and horrified face didn't register in my mind until after I barreled into her and sent us both tumbling into the TARDIS doors.

As I fell half on top of the Doctor's body, caught between her and the TARDIS, a memory flashed across my mind's eye: I was running towards the TARDIS and I was scared. I frowned, my eyes absently tracing the lines of the Doctor's face as I replayed the memory. There was no memory of anything after those images, but there was a memory of the events beforehand. I recalled the Time Lords that had chased us, the Daleks that had followed, the raining down of rocks upon our heads, and the pure terror that had gripped my heart.

I didn't realize that the Doctor's hand was trembling against my cheek until the sound of her crying broke my concentration. I blinked and my vision refocused on her puffy, bloodshot eyes and the streaks her tears had left in the dirt caked on her skin. Pulling my head back so her hands were holding empty air, I swiftly moved so that I wasn't spread against the Doctor in an overly familiar manner and was kneeling instead.

"What happened?" I asked. The Doctor sat up and looked as though she might break if the wind blew too hard in her direction. "Doctor, are you okay?"

"No," she croaked. "No, I'm not."

The platform was completely engulfed in flames by that point. "What happened?" I said again, this time more worried about the Doctor than how I had ended up on what looked eerily similar to a funeral pyre.

"You don't remember?"

"I remember the Daleks. I remember that I was terrified and running - you told me to run for the TARDIS. But I don't remember going inside. Why?"

Tears bubbled over the Doctor's eyelids and streaked down her cheeks. "You died," she said with trembling lips.

" _What?!_ " The Doctor sighed and reached for my hand, my name caught in her throat, but I withdrew and stood up. "But how could I be dead? I'm alive _now_."

"The Daleks killed you before you could reach the TARDIS." She swallowed, her eyes darting away from my insistent gaze. "I took you here to bury you, but decided on honoring you with a pyre instead," she explained gesturing to the roaring fire. "I had no idea-… I didn't know it was possible for you to come back or I never would have-."

Shaking my head firmly, I wrapped my arms around my chest. "It's not possible," I said. "No one can come back from the dead."

The Doctor leaned against the TARDIS as she stood up. "You were dead. I checked your pulse, your breathing. I heard you scream when the Daleks killed you. Diana, no one can survive a Dalek, not even a Time Lord. I know that better than anyone."

"But… But it just feels like I was asleep! Th-There was nothing, no bright light or gently slipping into unconsciousness. It feels like I closed my eyes and then opened them again, like I had a good nap, not… not that."

The Doctor captured one of my hands within hers, her grip firm and strong. "I swear to you, I'm telling the truth. I wish I was lying, but I'm not."

Ripping my hand free with a scowl, I pushed the TARDIS doors open. "I don't believe you," I snapped. "You put me on that thing and almost killed me!" I shouted, pointing angrily at the crackling remains of the funeral pyre and the blaze that had consumed it. "Just stay away from me."

"Diana, you don't understand-"

"Stay away!" I called as I darted inside the ship.

The things the Doctor had said were impossible and their implications terrifying. I _knew_ I couldn't have died because if I had, I would have felt it, I would have remembered it happening. Most of all, I couldn't believe I had died because if I did, then I had to accept the fact that maybe… there was really nothing waiting for us after death. I had felt nothing, neither pain or happiness. That was the opposite of everything I believed in and hoped for, and I refused to accept it.

The flame of the funeral pyre seemed to follow me inside the TARDIS, taunting me and licking at my heels. I wiped the sweat from my brow and wiped my tears away with it.

While it was a relief to be safe and sound inside my room, it was hard to even look at because it was simply another reminder of where I was and where I could never return. With just basic furniture and no decorations or personal touches, it didn't even feel completely mine. I felt like a guest in my own home.

 _My room, inside a spaceship that can time-travel, with an alien from a T.V. show who doesn't even look the same. My family, gone. My friends wouldn't know me if they saw me. The person I once loved… Well, they're not the same either. And here I am, recently risen from the dead from a Dalek attack like some kind of science fictionalized biblical Lazarus AU which isn't even possible because, if the Doctor can be believed, I was dead and there was_ nothing _. Nothing._

I sat down on the edge of my bed and closed my eyes. How was I supposed to move on from losing everything? How was I supposed to live when the very foundations of my life had been flipped upside-down? Was I just supposed to stay in the TARDIS for the rest of my life? What did my 'fading' and re- and disappearing mean, and how and why did it happen? Was it somehow connected to the Doctor? It seemed the only logical answer since the Doctor always seemed to be nearby, no matter where I went.

It was likely that only the Doctor had the answers to latter half of my questions, but I had just screamed in her face and ran off like a child. Tossing my glasses to the side, I dropped my face into my hands and cried softly.

* * *

I wandered into the kitchen some hours later, guided my map and the growling of my stomach. I had heard the TARDIS dematerialize soon after I reached my bedroom, but hadn't heard it rematerialize since, which had to mean that we were adrift in the time vortex. I considered seeking the Doctor out for answers, but I was embarrassed, hesitant, and still reeling from my crying session, so I focused instead on fixing myself a meal.

I hadn't thought much about what I looked (or smelled) like until after I finished eating because I was so hungry, but I certainly noticed afterward. I could feel dirt and soot on my face, and my hair was greasy near the roots; all in all, I needed a shower pronto. Grabbing a denim jacket, dark-colored shirt and jeans from my closet, I hurried into my bathroom and got cleaned up.

Feeling full and squeaky clean, I finally decided to search for the Doctor. I had questions that needed answering if I was going to find any peace of mind. By some miracle, the map that the Doctor's eldest incarnation had drawn for me was in my room and hadn't gotten lost in all the time that I'd been away from it, so I unfolded it and decided that I would stop by the Doctor's room since it was closer than the console room. But when I reached the spot where there should have been a door, there was nothing except an empty stretch of wall that I couldn't bring myself to look at properly, only eyeing it from the corner of my vision as I wondered what the Doctor might have done with her room.

In the end, I found the Time Lady in the console room, one of the roundels braced open like a door and her hands stuck inside. I could faintly hear the sonic screwdriver whirring as I approached the console. A quiet cough to clear my throat was enough to get the Doctor's attention. The whirring inside the roundel stopped and her hands withdrew from the opening as she turned to face me.

"I'm sorry," I said, my eyes falling to the floor, "for yelling at you."

"You don't need to apologize," said the Doctor. She attempted to smile as she added, "I suppose my actions were a little hasty."

"It's okay, I… I understand. Actually, I wanted to talk to you because there are a few things that I _don't_ understand."

"Of course. What do you want to know?"

I refolded the map and stuffed it into my back pocket. Spreading my fingers out and turning my hands over, I inspected every crease and freckle marked on my skin. "You told me before that I fade. I just… slip away like mist. But how?" I asked, finally meeting the Doctor's gaze. "Why?"

Glancing around the room, the Doctor chewed worriedly on the inside of her cheek. "Perhaps you should sit down."

"Why?"

"Because what I have to tell you is a lot of information to take in at once."

I shook my head. "I don't care," I said, not rudely but a little firmly. "What is it, Doctor? What's happening to me? Why is it happening to me?"

"I can't say why," she admitted with a sigh. "I doubt there was ever a reason for it other than chance. What little I do know about what happened to you is this: you were brought here through a disturbance in the time vortex that rippled along the boundaries of this universe and your own. When you were pulled through, your body was severely injured. The chronon particles - _time_ particles - that course through the vortex bled into your body. They completely saturated every inch of your body, inside and out. That is what enables you to time travel whilst remaining unharmed within the vortex itself."

My knees wobbled slightly as I reached for the console in desperate need of something sturdy to hold onto. It wasn't difficult to picture everything as the Doctor had described it: my lifeless, battered, and bruised body floating in an endless current made of time, the gold-tinted rainbow colors of the vortex being sucked into my body through open wounds, nostrils, and lips.

"Your DNA was completely rewritten," the Doctor continued, her voice softer now. I could hear her boots thud softly against the floor as she drew closer. "You're still human," she assured me, "but you're part of the time vortex now, too."

"Is that why it hurts?"

The Doctor stepped around the console slowly, as if she was approaching a frightened, injured animal. I didn't blame her for it, though, because I was scared. "Yes. It's the chronon particles activating. That's not normal for a human, so your body simply does the best it can."

"Then… how do you fit into all of this?" I carefully searched the Doctor's war-hardened face. "It's only happened a few times, but every time I _do_ fade, you're there. That's not just a coincidence, is it?"

The Doctor's gazed rested heavily on me. "Truth be told, I don't know. The evidence surely points to something binding us together, pulling you from one corner of the universe to the other to find me, of all people, but it's only an educated guess on my part."

"Will it ever stop? Can… Can I ever be normal again?"

I could feel my lower lip tremble when the Doctor answered by silently looking away. Fear, confusion, worry, and uncertainty poured down my cheeks in the form of tears, and I turned to the console and shut out the rest of the universe with tightly shut eyelids. I had cried and mourned before seeking the Doctor out and I didn't want to cry any longer; I was already tired of it. I stood braced against the console for a minute or two, contemplating the implications of my strange new life in the Doctor's universe, and then I decided not to cry anymore. I wiped my tears away and told myself to be strong.

"Okay," I said, my eyes fixed on the ragged scarf tied around the Doctor's neck. "Okay."

"Okay?"

I nodded. "I'm okay now."

"Diana, you needn't pretend you're not upset. It's alright to cry."

"But I don't want to." I closed my eyes again and tried very hard not to think about all the reasons why my heart felt as if it had been ripped from my chest. "I don't want to think about it, I don't want to cry about it. I just… want to be happy."

The TARDIS whirred softly, the lights momentarily dimming. The Doctor and I glanced at the ceiling and although I couldn't understand what the ship was saying, I could feel her. With my one hand still grasping the lip of the console, I could feel the TARDIS vibrate softly as a warm, comforting sensation trailed up my arm and radiated throughout my body.

"What did she say?" asked the Doctor.

I shook my head, my eyes trained on my fingers as I spread them out across the console. "I don't know, but I think she's trying to comfort me."

"I think she has the right idea." The Doctor shuffled closer, her hand resting atop the console just beside my hand, as if she was trying to reach for me, but wasn't confident that she should. "Would you like to go somewhere?"

My eyes traced the outline of the Doctor's smile, then flitted up to meet her gaze. "Where?"

"Anywhere you want to go. Perhaps a distraction would be good for both of us-" Before the Doctor could continue, an alarm sounded and a tiny light began flashing just a few inches above my hand. "Oh, no."

"What's wrong?"

The Doctor moved so her right arm was pressed against my left as she inspected the light. "Something's wrong," she said as she darted around me.

"With the TARDIS?" I asked.

"No." She grabbed the scanner and moved it so that we could both see it, typing something out on the keyboard. A brownish, vaguely disc-shaped object appeared onscreen with a single tower stretching out from the center. "It's the Time Lords. They're releasing them."

I examined the scanner, but didn't understand what the Doctor was talking about. "Releasing what? What is that?"

The Doctor, however, didn't answer me and instead piloted the ship to land inside the object. The location appeared on the scanner and blinked on and off after I requested the information on the keyboard.

"What's Time Station Zenobia II?"

The Doctor was already darting towards the doors before the TARDIS had finished materializing. "It's a Gallifreyan post, a station in the Empusa Cluster. The last time I was here, the Valeyard had manipulated me into appearing for that ridiculous trial of his!" She wrenched the doors open and then stepped outside. "Stop this!"

I hurried after the Time Lady and found myself standing in a brightly lit, silver walled room populated with only two people. One woman clad in green, gold trimmed robes stood near the great window opposite the TARDIS, the vast expanse of space and a multitude of Dalek saucers visible through the glass. Her Gallifreyan collar formed an ominous silhouette against the stunning blackness of space, even as she turned to face myself and the Doctor. The other woman stood at a brown control panel, her copper hair falling over her shoulder in a simple braid where a tan cloak was draped.

"This is obscene," said the Doctor, pointing to the woman in green.

"What's obscene is you bringing another of your humans onboard a Gallifreyan station!" the woman snapped.

Although clearly upset by the woman's remark, the Doctor didn't reproach her for it. "Voltrix, you simply cannot do this. We spent millennia fighting back against those creatures and now you're going to unleash their evil upon the universe again?"

Voltrix, a woman with dark skin and hardened eyes, scowled. "We are unleashing their evil upon the Daleks. I think you'll find there's a subtle difference."

"We'll see how subtle it is when they've bled every galaxy dry."

"The rifts are opening, Councilor," announced the copper-haired woman beside me.

The Councilor looked at the Doctor. "Cardinal Ollistra signed the order herself. This is the only way."

The Doctor shook her head, reaching for Voltrix with an outstretched arm to plead with her. "Please. _Please_ , don't do this. Just listen to me-"

"Save your bleeding hearts for the Shobogans, Doctor." A lightning-white rift cracked open beyond the window, not unlike the cracks in time that had stalked the Doctor's eleventh incarnation. An emerald hand larger than the biggest Dalek saucer emerged from the rift, then another, and the rift was pulled apart. Crawling out from inside the blinding whiteness was an obscene, green monster too large for words. "This time, the Great Vampires are on _our_ side."

The Doctor's face suddenly filled my vision, her eyes wide and terrified. I could feel her fingers wrapping around my biceps. "Get inside the TARDIS. Lock the doors. Don't let anyone or anything in. If I tell you to leave me, then go."

"You want me to just abandon you?"

"If I tell you to, yes! Now get inside!"

The station trembled fiercely as the Vampires roared and ripped the Dalek fleet to pieces. I turned and bolted inside the TARDIS, but didn't lock the doors. (I wasn't exactly sure how to lock them, but I like to think I wouldn't have anyways.) The TARDIS shook and jolted, presumably in tandem with the station itself, and I quickly threw my arms around the closest coral support beam.

At some point, I moved to stand at the console and turned the scanner on so I could safely observe the station. The Doctor and the copper-haired woman were standing at the control panel, frantically typing away at buttons and glass display screens. In the distance, I could make out the pixelated figures of two Jolly Green Giant Vampires as they tore at the station with their clawed hands.

Whirling around to face the TARDIS, the Doctor seemed to look directly at me and she ordered me to take off immediately. My eyes flicked to the window behind her and the two other Time Ladies; the window was already cracked and sparking around the edges. Councilor Voltrix shouted something unintelligible and moments later, a large explosion went off that created a brand new rift, slowly sucking the Vampires back inside.

 _WARNING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF TIME STATION FAILING_ , read the flashing announcement in the middle of the scanner. It was quickly replaced by a new warning that said, _STATION DEMISE INEVITABLE._

"Doctor!" I yelped, flicking on the external speakers so she could hear me. "Doctor, I think the station's going to blow up!"

"I told you to go!"

"But what about you?"

"I don't matter! Just get out of here!"

Frantically trying to figure out a way to save the Doctor's life and maybe even the other two women fighting to save the station at her side, I grabbed at my hair in frustration. Then I looked at the scanner, watching the Doctor paw at the station console. If I could materialize the TARDIS around her and her cloaked companion, then I could convince the Councilor to join us and we could escape before the station was destroyed, as the scanner continued to remind me with a third, more frantic warning. The only problem was that I didn't know how to get the coordinates.

One of the four multicolored keyboards had a square in the lower corner detailed with arrows pointing in several directions and at first, I thought that perhaps I could use that to narrow in on a part of the screen I wanted to transport to. After several infinitely long seconds of achieving nothing, however, I quickly moved on. If I could lock onto the Doctor's bio-signs instead, then I could still get her inside, but I didn't know how to do that either.

"Dammit, why can I fly you but I can't use you?" I shouted with an added smack against the console.

I flew to the doors, yanked them open, and stumbled outside as the station was rocked again by an unseen explosion. The Doctor started to order me back inside, but I grabbed her by the jacket and hauled her towards me, spinning around at the last second and taking her with me, then using the momentum of my turn to push her inside the ship. I reached for the redhead and pulled her away from the control panel, shoving her in the TARDIS' direction, then started for the Councilor.

Through the chaotic din echoing throughout the station, I thought I heard the Doctor scream my name. I felt something close around my hand as time suddenly seemed to slow. I was pulled backward, my head snapping forward as an arm worked its way around my waist. In an effort to regain my balance, my feet danced around awkwardly and stepped on something that was quickly yanked away, and I fell backward with a cry.

The dusty, grey interior of the TARDIS came in and out of focus above me, and something squirmed beneath me. As my eyes drifted towards my feet, where most of the movement was, I saw a leg shoot out and kick the door shut. The TARDIS shuddered as another explosion sounded just outside the doors.

I was pushed to one side and rolled onto my stomach, watching as the Doctor struggled to her feet and raced for the console. She and the copper-haired Time Lady began pacing around the console as the ship dematerialized. I grunted and pushed myself onto my hands and knees, only to notice that a familiar, golden glow had begun to emanate from my trembling fingers.

I cried out painfully as my limbs froze and folded in on themselves, resulting in me collapsing on the floor of the console room. "Doctor!"

Her boots sounded against the metal floor, but I was gone before she could reach me. I closed my eyes against the tears and the nauseating kaleidoscope effect of the time vortex. My muscles spasmed, my vertebrae locked into place, and my mouth fell open in a silent scream as the glow that had fully encompassed my body pulsated like a distant star.

The vortex winds tugged at my arms and toyed with my legs, tilting me forward so that I was standing straight. A hole opened up where the vortex curved and its horizon disappeared. Through the hole was a three-story house, a flower garden, and a woman sitting by an easel. The vortex propelled me forward and threw me throw the opening, my legs windmilling. I stumbled onto even ground, but wasn't able to stop my legs before I fell flat on my face.

* * *

 **Author's Note: So, I have a surprise for everyone! I'm going to add all of the Titan Comics series into this story! I found a website that has almost all of them and I'm really excited for the ones I'm going to be doing over the next few chapters! You're all welcome to take a guess if you've read any of them.**

 **But please leave me a review! I'd really love to know what you guys thought of this chapter, even if it's just to critique. Sorry for the long wait, but I hope it was worth it!**


	13. The Pictures of Josephine Day

**Author's Note: Thanks so, so much to Ellie & QuinnLockwood for leaving me multiple reviews! I can't even say how much I appreciate it. If you guys ever want to see something special, send me a message and I'll try to work into the story!**

* * *

"Are you okay?"

Groaning as I brushed dirt from my cheek and out of my eyelashes, I turned towards the voice that had addressed me. Its source was a young woman who looked about my age; she was tall, lithe, and pale, with her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. The top half of her hair had been dyed a bright shade of blue that matched her eyes and faded into cotton candy pink about halfway down, with her undercut colored blue as well. A silver nose ring pierced her right nostril and both of her earlobes had been pierced with modestly sized plugs. All in all, she was beautiful and I was already crushing hard.

"Um, y-yeah," I stammered, moving to sit instead of lying sprawled out across a bed of crushed pansies.

The woman left her easel, dropping her paintbrush on her seat, and hurried in my direction. "You took quite a fall," she said as she knelt down. I noticed that her accent sounded Welsh and briefly wondered if I would stumble across a member of Torchwood anytime soon. "How'd you do that?"

I blew a raspberry to remove a few stray specks of dirt that had caught on my lips. "Do what?"

"You just appeared outta thin air! Like somethin' outta Star Trek!"

"I do that… sometimes."

The woman's stunningly blue eyes shifted to the crushed bed of flowers. "And you also ruin my garden," she huffed. Then she smiled. "Sometimes."

"I'm sorry."

"That's okay. I can always find other flowers t'paint." Offering me her hand, the woman helped me to my feet and then rested her closed fists on her hips. "I'm Josie. What's your name?"

"Diana."

"Nice t'meet ya! D'you want some tea? Coffee?"

I frowned and narrowed my eyes. "Why are you so friendly? Sorry, that was a little rude, but I did just crash into your garden and ruin your flowers."

"And beam into my backyard like Cap'n Janeway." Josie waved a hand dismissively. "I'm a friendly person. An' you seem nice enough, ruined flowers notwithstanding."

Josie led me inside through the sliding glass door at the back of the house, then trailed towards the front of the house to the kitchen. It was impossible not to notice that almost every surface was covered with large, stunningly lifelike paintings, and that many of those paintings were of more than just a pretty garden. One painting was of green armored Ice Warriors, another of flying saucers in an alien sky, and another of a young woman with short, black hair and a mischievous smile. The painting seemed so real that for a moment I wondered if the girl would walk right of the frame and say hello.

"Your paintings are so beautiful," I said upon stepping into the kitchen. It was small, mostly decorated with wood cabinets and tiled countertops, and the walls had been painted a soft yellow. "They look so real!"

"Thank you," said Josie cheerfully. "Didjya want anything? Ya never said."

I hummed thoughtfully. "Um…" My stomach grumbled at that moment and I hurriedly pressed my palm against it to quiet it. Sheepishly, I met Josie's eyes and smiled. "I'm good. I don't want to impose-"

Josie opened the refrigerator door and peered inside. "Nonsense! I think I have enough stuff t'make us both a couple o' sandwiches. D'you like ham or turkey better?"

Confused by but incredibly grateful for Josie's kindness and friendliness, I adjusted my glasses. The lenses turned black for a moment and I hastily pressed my finger against the bridge to revert them to normal glasses before Josie saw. "Uh, ham?"

"Good, because there's almost no turkey left." Throwing me a wink over her shoulder, Josie added, "I had a midnight snack last night 'n' got a li'l carried away."

After Josie had made us both some food and poured out tea for herself and water for me, she haphazardly threw everything back into the fridge and guided me to the dining room. The dining table was just big enough for about four people, but two of the chairs were occupied by paintings.

"Sorry 'bout the mess. I don't usually have people over."

I set my plate and drink down on a plastic placemat. "That's okay. You should see my room, it's a total disaster." But I realized after the words had left my mouth that that wasn't true any more. I forced my smile to stay in place until after Josie turned her attention to her food. "Anyways. So, um, this is going to sound a little weird, but could I ask where I am?"

One of Josie's eyebrows shot into the air. "You don't know?"

"Well, I'm guessing I'm in the UK. You sound Welsh-ish?"

She laughed. "I'm not actually from Wales, but I've been here long enough that my accent's changed. But you're definitely not from 'round here either," she said, eyeing me as she took a sip of her tea. "Canadian?"

"American," I chuckled.

"So, were you in America before your li'l portal thing beamed you over here?"

 _Try an exploding space station._ "Yeah."

Josie leaned forward, her chin cupped in her hand and her elbow braced against the table. "How does that work, then? D'you have, like, a portal gun or some kind o' Stargate or somethin'?"

"Or something. I kind of just show up places and hope for the best, to be honest."

"Sounds exciting!"

I took a bite of my first sandwich and nodded. "I guess so."

Somewhere inside the house, a clock began chiming. Josie and I had fallen silent as we continued eating. After the clock had stopped, I looked out the nearest window and noted the patches of orange sunlight streaking through gloomy, grey clouds. _3 o'clock? But it looks like the sun's about to set!_

"What's the date?" I wondered

"Er, I think the fourteenth?"

"No, I mean, like, the full date."

Josie smiled and stole another bite of food. "Did your head get messed up when ya beamed over or didjya just get blackout drunk the night before?"

I shrugged. "Just curious."

" _February_ the fourteenth." Josie's charming laughs enough to prompt a smile from myself. "You're very strange." She grinned and I felt my cheeks flush slightly. She was _way_ too pretty. "Good thing I am, too."

* * *

"So, why'd you come here?" Josie asked. "Were you looking for someone?"

I handed over the silverware I had just finished washing and she dried them off with a hand towel. "Sort of. Usually there's someone I know after this happens, but I don't know where she is. At least, I think she's a she." I borrowed Josie's hand towel to wipe down the extra water that splashed onto the counter. "I don't suppose you know anyone called the Doctor?"

"You'll have t'be a li'l more specific than that. What's her name?"

"That _is_ her name. Doctor."

"What, she just popped outta her mum an' her parents called her Doctor?"

"No," I laughed, "but that's what she calls herself. That's what everyone calls her."

Josie replaced the silverware in one of the drawers, then took another sip of her tea. "Unfortunately, I don't know anyone just called 'Doctor'. Is she your ticket home?"

"Yeah. I just don't know where she is."

"So, what're you gonna do until you find her?"

I glanced out the kitchen window, the sun having already disappeared behind the houses across the street. The sky was growing darker with each passing minute. "I don't know."

"D'you have somewhere t'go, someone you can stay with?"

"Not really," I said, inspecting my suddenly fascinating fingernails.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Josie turn and look out the window. She fiddled with the gold, heart shaped locket around her neck. "It's already getting dark. Why don't you stay here tonight?"

My head snapped up and I stared incredulously into her eyes. "You don't even know me."

"You don't know _me_. For all you know, I could be a serial killer! I promise I'm not, though," she added quickly. "You don't have anywhere to go an' a long time ago, neither did I. It wouldn't be right to turn you away. So, if you trust me, you can stay here for as long as you need t'find your Doctor friend."

"I-I don't know what to say. Thank you!"

"Don't mention it." Josie pushed away from the counter and gestured beyond the kitchen walls with her thumb. "Lemme show you the guest rooms."

"You'll have to excuse all the paintings," Josie continued as we headed towards the dining room. "It's my job, but it's also my hobby. I also have tremendous amounts of free time, so now I'm sort of drowning in artwork."

"There are worse ways to go."

I lingered in the hallway just beyond the dining room, looking at a beautiful painting of a pink sky and black-blue landscape. In the bottom corner was a tiny splotch of indigo paint vaguely shaped like a box. When I asked the artist about the piece, she just smiled.

"I've a wild imagination."

The gentle crackle of a lightbulb coming to life accompanied the sudden flood of light that illuminated the hallway. At the back was a dark wood staircase that appeared several decades old. The wood was smooth and worn in certain places, and the floorboards creaked underfoot.

The walls of the second story were the same faded shade of purple-grey as the rest of the house, minus the kitchen, which I suspected Josie had painted herself. The top of the stairwell opened to a perpendicular hallway, two doors centered directly in front of us. To our right were two other doors, this time on our side of the hallway, and at the very end was another stairwell that led to the third and final level. Another door stood on our left just beside the wall.

"There's a bathroom here an' here." Josie pointed to the left of the two doors directly ahead, then to the door closest to the other stairwell. Then she grabbed the handle of the right door. "This room's the only one I have made up at the moment."

Flicking the lights on after pushing the door open, Josie stepped back with an arm outstretched, gesturing for me to look inside. The floor lamp that had turned on was missing all but one of its bulbs, the other four arms framing the center one as the light shone weakly through a faded, multicolor glass shade. A twin sized bed and chestnut frame stood in the middle of the room, decorated with white sheets and a white comforter that had been embroidered with dozens of off-white daisies. Neatly placed beside an analog clock on the bedside table was a brass lamp with a white shade.

"I feel like I've stepped into 1970."

Josie snickered. "Yeah, it's a li'l hippie, but I like it."

"No, it's nice. I like it, too. Thanks."

"Course!" Wiggling her fingers in my direction, Josie started for the stairs. "Now get yourself settled in. I'll be right back."

Shrugging my jacket off and tossing it across the mattress, I plopped down on the side of the bed and heaved a sigh. Looking at the faint streaks in the pale yellow paint on the walls, I fiddled nervously with the pendant hanging around my neck. _Doctor, where are you?_ I wondered. _You're the only constant I have. Where_ are _you?_

* * *

"What's so funny?" I said, squinting suspiciously in Josie's direction as she tried to muffled her laughter.

Josie passed me a breakfast bar, sliding it across the kitchen counter. She pointed to the left side of my head and smiled. "Your hair's a li'l prickly."

I ghosted my palm over the shaved part of my hair and felt my cheeks flush with crimson heat. I licked my palm, then quickly tried to tame the sticky-up bits as best I could. "I should probably shower, but…" I eyed the breakfast bar. "I'm really freaking hungry."

"There're extra towels folded under the sink if you need 'em." Unwrapping her own breakfast bar, Josie stepped past the kitchen window and the early morning sunlight, although shining from the opposite end of the sky, seemed to illuminate her skin. "Didjya sleep well?"

"It took me a while, but I got there in the end. You?"

"Like a baby," she admitted. "But I woke up early 'cause I just _had_ to start on this new painting." Josie lightly nudged me in the ribs as she passed. "I'll see ya after your shower, eh, Star Trek girl?"

I watched her move into the living room and sit down by her easel, a mostly blank canvas propped up and a table stationed beside it with paints, a palette, and a cup full of brushes. The neckline of her crop top slipped down her shoulder slightly, revealing the straps of her periwinkle tank top, and she tugged at the shirt with an annoyed sigh. Upon realizing that I was staring, I forced myself to go back upstairs and shower.

My clothes weren't dirty and, thankfully, didn't smell, but Josie had turned the heater on and there was _no way_ I was wearing my denim jacket if she kept it on, so I left it sprawled out on the mattress. After toweling my hair dry and running my fingers through it in an attempt to look somewhat decent, I started downstairs and stole into the kitchen to look for another breakfast bar.

Josie had painted a purple and pink something on her canvas by the time I returned to the living room. I'd noticed before my shower that there was an enormous bookcase on one side of the room and started looking through the collection for something interesting.

A distant, familiar wheeze sounded somewhere outside and I turned, my lungs filled with hope. I stepped away from the bookcase towards the doorway, something inexplicable pulling me in the direction of what I hoped was the TARDIS and, consequently, the Doctor. A loud creak sounded in the back of the house, and Josie and I both whipped our heads towards it.

"Did you hear that?" Josie whispered. I nodded, praying that it really was the Doctor and not a burglar. "Hello?" she called. "Who's there?"

Stepping around the corner of the doorway, the floorboards creaking beneath her feet, a woman appeared and leaned against the frame with a smirk. Impossibly dark, curly hair had been shaved into an undercut on the bottom with a small fringe on top, the woman's bangs just touching her eyelashes. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Funny. That's precisely what I was going to say." With one leg crossed over the other in a pose that radiated smug confidence, I couldn't help thinking that the woman seemed very familiar. "I'm the Doctor. And I'd very much like to know what you're doing in my house."

"Doctor?" Josie and I exclaimed, both incredulously and simultaneously.

I looked over the woman's tattered, green overcoat, the hint of a fob watch chained to a button on her waistcoat and mostly hidden inside a pocket, and decided it wasn't all that difficult to identify which incarnation of the Time Lady I'd been drawn to, even if she looked nothing like Paul McGann. Between her midnight hair, radiant black skin, and the noticeably alluring curve of her waist, I was having trouble determining if I was a little disappointed that the Doctor I remembered didn't exist or if I was overwhelmingly gay for the Doctor that stood before me.

Josie's voice seemed far away when she breathed, "You're the Doctor?"

The Doctor, however, clearly wasn't paying any attention to her because her focus was entirely and uncomfortably on me. The smirk and smug pose melted away as the Time Lady stared silently at me, her big, brown eyes flitting across my face. I glanced hesitantly at Josie, who shrugged and shook her head, then looked to the Doctor again.

"Doctor? Are you okay?" I said slowly.

She smiled and it was heartbreaking. "Yes, of course." I pretended not to notice the water pooling in her eyes. "It's good to see you again."

"I-It's good to see you, too."

Breaking out of her musing, the Doctor snapped and pointed at Josie. "When I come back, I want an explanation as to why you're in my house."

"When you-? Where are you going?" Josie asked, jolting out of her chair.

But the Doctor had already disappeared down the hallway at that point. I caught Josie's eyes and frowned, shaking my head in confusion. She set her paintbrush and palette down on the seat, and hurried over, reaching for my arm.

"Is that the Doctor you were talking about?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Is it just me, or did she seem t'be acting a li'l strange?"

"It's definitely not just you."

Josie and I remained standing by the bookcase for a moment, peering down the hallway as if we could somehow see the Doctor. Then Josie nudged me in the arm with her elbow and grinned. I laughed, watching her wiggle her eyebrows suggestively.

"What?"

Josie gestured to the hallway with a nod of her head. "She's pretty, isn't she?"

"Yeah… Why?"

"What, you thought I wasn't gonna notice you checking her out? Or checking me out, for that matter?"

Taken aback by Josie's lack of subtlety, I sputtered nonsensically for a few moments before finally turning my gaze to one of the paintings propped against the wall. "I-I wasn't checking you out. I wasn't checking a-anyone out! I was just-! I was only _looking_."

"Mm." Josie sat down at her easel again and crossed one leg over the other, leaning forward with her arms resting on her thighs. "Whatever you say, Star Trek girl."

The Doctor came bounding into the room then, her eyes immediately landing on me. "Now, then. Who's going to explain everything to me?"

Josie replaced her paintbrush and palette on the table. She stood and extended her arm towards the Doctor with a smile. "I'm Josie. Josie Day." I chuckled softly when the Doctor's handshake was firm enough to prompt a startled reaction from the painter.

"A pleasure to meet you, Josie, but why are you in my house?"

She shrugged. "Well, painting, mostly. I needed a place t stay and this place was empty. It was practically falling down! I-I thought it had been abandoned, so I patched it up as best I could-"

"Yes, well, I'm sure it's been a few decades since I last looked in," said the Doctor. She finally dropped Josie's hand and turned to look around the room, her hands clasped behind her back. "I like what you've done with the place, by the way."

"What's brought you back?" Josie wondered. "Not that you can't come back t'your own house, I mean. But after all this time?" She frowned, reached for her pendant and clasping it tightly as she watched the Doctor investigate the room. "I'm sorry. I'm babbling. I just wasn't expecting any visitors. Or landlord visits. Well… I don't know what this is, actually."

The Doctor waved a hand half over her shoulder, half over her head as she knelt near the bookcase, rummaging through a pile of stuff. A teddy bear went flying over her shoulder. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm just looking for a book." I eyed the bookcase and smiled, shaking my head. She plucked a small, metallic square from the pile and squinted at it. "It's very important and she must have left it here."

"She?" I echoed.

Dropping the metal square back into the pile, the Doctor stood and looked at the bookcase. "Me. The other me."

"The _other_ you?" Josie squeaked.

"Yes. Old, white hair, frills, a nice scarf," she explained, gesturing a circle around her face as she mentioned the scarf. "You wouldn't have liked her, Josie. She had no appreciation for art, spent all her time taking things apart and leaving bits lying about. But Diana liked her." The Doctor glanced at me and grinned. "Didn't you?"

I felt my mouth drop open. "Uh…"

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't? I thought you liked her back then!"

"I-I did," I assured her, although I wasn't sure why I felt compelled to say so.

The Doctor's smile returned and I couldn't look away. She was so beautiful. "Excellent."

"You're not making any sense," Josie said, coming up to stand on the Doctor's left side while I stood on her right.

The Doctor leaned closer to the bookcase and tsked. "You've rearranged it!"

Josie huffed and crossed her arms over her stomach. "They were a mess. I alphabetized it."

"They were chronological." The Doctor's hand shot out and grabbed a book. She inspected it, then tossed it over her shoulder. "It was near the end of the shelf because I haven't met her yet!"

"Met who?" I asked, ducking out of the way of the Doctor's arm as she tossed another book aside.

"Charlotte Brontë, of course! I'm looking for my copy of _Jane Eyre_."

I dropped into a crouch and searched the books along the bottom shelves, but didn't spot anything with Brontë's name or the title. Josie's legging-clad calves suddenly came into view. I titled my head back to see her moving one of her paintings from its place hanging from a nail on the top shelf. It showcased an orange backdrop and brownish rock formations, and shimmered slightly as it drifted in and out of a sunbeam.

"They're unusually good," said the Doctor. "What do you do with them?"

"I sell them when I can find someone who's actually willing t'give me money for them. I'm under no illusions, Doctor. They're a bit of an acquired taste."

" _I_ like them," I said, standing as Josie set the painting aside.

The Doctor rubbed her finger along the ridge below her bottom lip. "You've chosen some rather interesting subjects."

Josie went on to explain that her paintings had become popular enough with the locals that several people had bought them to hang in their own homes, and that one of her pieces even hung in the local pub. A knock at the front door cut her off.

"I think you've another visitor," said the Doctor. She snatched the painting off the ground and looked over it closely as Josie ran off to answer the door. "This doesn't look very much like Earth, does it?" she said to me.

"I dunno. It could be Arizona at sunset."

The Doctor rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to agree with me."

Josie's voice drifted into the living room, along with that of another woman. It was a Welsh lady who was speaking so quickly and frantically that I could hardly understand her, but from what little I could hear it seemed that she was upset over some kind of attack. I crept closer to the doorway so I could hear better.

"It was a monster!" the woman exclaimed.

"A monster?" I jumped upon hearing the Doctor's voice just behind me. I turned and saw that she had moved into the hallway just outside my periphery.

"It was just like the ones in your funny painting," the woman continued, as if she hadn't seen the Doctor appear from behind a bookcase at the mention of a monster attack. "A man made out of stone with glowing eyes and fingertips. Demon spawn, I tell you!"

Josie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her hands balanced on her hips. "Mrs. Fellowes, how long were you in the pub before-?"

Mrs. Fellowes huffed, a few strands of her dark bangs falling over her eyes. "I'm not sure I like your implication, Josie! I'd only had a sweet sherry!"

The Doctor, who had moved steadily down the hallway towards the front door, spoke again. "Take a deep breath, Mrs. Fellowes. I'm the Doctor and I love a good monster story. Josie's going to put the kettle on-"

"Oh, am I?"

"You are. And Mrs. Fellowes is going to tell us exactly what happened - from the beginning. Then she's going to show us where all this happened."

"I'll take you there now," said Mrs. Fellowes, "and I'll explain on the way."

"Oh. Right then."

Josie put a hand on Mrs. Fellowes arm. "Just give me a second to grab my shoes." She turned and spotted me peeking out from the living room. "Oh, by the way, that's Diana." I waved awkwardly. "She's a friend."

Realizing I'd left my shoes in the guest room, I excused myself and darted up the stairs to retrieve them. On my back downstairs, the Doctor met me at the bottom with her hand on the bannister. I finished readjusting the collar of my jacket and offered her a tiny smile.

"Have you been here long?" she wondered.

"Less than a full day. Josie was kind enough to take me in since I didn't have anywhere to go."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, she seems very nice, doesn't she?"

"Yep."

I took the hand that the Doctor offered me and descended the final stair, noting but not acknowledging the strange manner in which she looked at me. I felt like I was under examination. Tugging my hand free, I slipped both appendages into my jacket pockets and smiled again. What else was I supposed to do when she looked at me as though I was something she'd never seen before?

"You okay?"

"I've had better days."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Smiling another bittersweet smile, the Doctor offered me her arm and I took it even though I didn't want to. My mother and grandmother did, after all, raise me to be polite. "Don't be. You're making me feel better already."

The weather was more brisk than I was used to, but it soon warmed to an almost perfect temperature due to our walk. My arm remained looped around the Doctor's until we reached the pub, Mrs. Fellowes explaining all the while exactly who she'd spoken to, what she'd had to drink, and how the creatures had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and scared most of the other customers away.

I only half paid attention to what the woman was saying, not caring enough to listen very closely. I kept thinking about what the Doctor had said to me before I faded, the things she had happened, and how much I missed the Doctor last night when I thought I was all alone. I hardly knew the woman, but finding myself all alone in a foreign country left me scared and desperate for a friend, and she was the only one I had.

What continued to confuse me was the way every Doctor I'd met had acted around me. I felt like I missing a vital piece of information, but I couldn't guess what it was. All I knew for sure was that the Doctor cared for me. The Doctor, of all people, cared for _me_! I was a college student with a dead-end job and no family, and she was a fictional character turned savior of the universe. Somehow, it didn't seem right when there were people like Romana, Clara, Zoe, and Jack in the Doctor's life, people who were smarter and more important than I could ever dream of being.

"I don't understand," said Mrs. Fellowes as we strode inside the _White Hart_ pub. There were no customers and no monsters to be found. "They were right here. They were just like those things in your painting, Josie, I swear! One o' them tried to grab me!"

The Doctor had let go of my arm so she could wander around the empty pub. Josie, standing by the fireplace where a small fire was struggling to stay alight, called myself and the Doctor over. She pointed at the painting that hung on the wall above the mantlepiece.

"Someone's vandalized it! There were loads o' stone people here an' now?"

The painting was of a regular, blue sky and a grassy field littered with boulders, but there were vaguely humanoid shapes in the piece that looked as if they'd been scratched out.

The Doctor frowned. "Shame. It looks like it was one of your best. Suspicious, isn't it?"

Josie raised an eyebrow. "The fact that someone's ruined my painting? 'S not the word I'd use."

Spinning around to gesture to the pub with widespread arms, the Doctor said, "No, the fact that it's Sunday lunchtime and there's no one in the pub."

Mrs. Fellowes waved her hand in Josie's direction, then pointed to a green mark on the floor by her feet. "Josie, look. Footprints! They're in paint."

"Curiouser and curiouser." The Doctor knelt down and dipped her forefinger in the paint. "This must be where they emerged from the painting." We followed the path that the footprints left, winding around tables towards another door at the back of the pub. The Doctor sniffed the paint on her finger. "It's the same color as the painted grass and it certainly smells like oil paint."

"'Emerged from the painting'?" Josie repeated incredulously. "You can't seriously be suggesting th-that the stone men just woke up an' climbed out?"

"Can't I?" Wiping her finger on her tan colored trousers, the Doctor jumped up and started for the back door. "C'mon! Let's see where this trail leads!"

The footprints wandered through the open doorway, along a stone walkway, and finally to a courtyard several meters beyond the pub grounds. At the center of the courtyard was a metal cross about my height and behind, at the courtyard's edge was a little church, and gathered between the cross and the church was what looked to be the entire village. Standing with their backs to us were towering, stoney beings with light glowing in the space between their boulderous body parts. I caught sight of an Ice Warrior in scaled, green armor before the Doctor grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me to the ground.

A stone wall about waist height encircled the edge of the pub's property and the Doctor had us crouch behind it to remain out of sight. "Seems there's a bit of a brouhaha on the village greens," the Doctor said, biting back a smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"What the hell is a brouhaha?" I whispered.

"Use your context clues, Diana."

My eyes rolled back far enough in my head that I could've sworn I saw the back of my own skull. Then I rubbed my fingertips against my eyes when they started aching because I rolled them a little too far back. "Will you tell me those things are, then?"

"Witherkin. Creatures of living starlight that fashion bodies from drifting asteroids. They've no place in a tiny Welsh village."

"They're beautiful."

The Doctor's head snapped in my direction. "They're also incredibly dangerous."

Admiration turned to fear in the blink of an eye. "Ah." _Never mind, then._

"They certainly look like the creatures from my painting," Josie whispered.

"That's because they are, Josie." One Witherkin lumbered past us and we quickly ducked out of sight, then peeked over the top of the wall to watch it leave. Its steps were jolty and uncertain like a puppet on a string. "Just look at them, the way they move! Awkward, unsteady. They have no real depth."

Josie huffed. "My art has depth!"

"They're animated constructs, walking art."

"But how could my paintings come t'life like this?"

Beside me, Mrs. Fellowes mumbled a pray under her breath. "Dark magic," she breathed with a shaky finger pointed towards the creatures. "Mark my words, Josie, there's evil business going on here."

The Doctor scoffed. "I've seen many things in this universe that defy easy explanation, Mrs. Fellowes, but I've yet to accept any one of them as magic."

"What're they gonna do t'all those people?" Josie asked.

We watched as the Witherkin, Ice Warriors, and a stray Cyberman herded the villagers into a corner of the courtyard. The villagers were terrified and confused, but as far as I could tell none of them had been hurt or killed. Somehow I knew that was important, but I wasn't sure what it meant.

"They're following the narratives of their paintings," the Doctor explained. I watched the hair around her eyes dance in the wind. "Acting out the stories you gave them, Josie. They lack any real, guiding intelligence. They're just impressions of the real things herding these people with no obvious purpose."

Two Witherkin suddenly stepped directly into view, their shadows swallowing us up. Their featureless stone faces were profoundly more terrifying than they should have been. Yelping, I fell onto my backside and crawled back several paces as one of the Witherkin stepped over the wall. I was half aware of the Doctor pulling me to my feet. I turned and bolted back inside the pub, racing for the main entrance, determined to survive another day.

I was yanked backwards by a hand on my arm. Turning to fight whatever had grabbed me, I stopped short when I realized that it was the Doctor. "Where do you think you're going?" she asked with a half smile. "Josie, did you-"

"Yes, but it's not going to hold them for long!"

Josie and Mrs. Fellowes had barricaded the back door with a chair, but the Witherkin were pounding against it. Falling back a few paces, Josie wrapped her arms around herself as a guilty expression washed over her face.

"Doctor, I… I painted those things. I created them, but I-I never intended this. What do we do? What did _I_ do?"

"That's precisely what I intend to find out, Josie." Releasing my arm, the Doctor whipped out her sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the young artist. The screwdriver whirred softly, the triangular, blue tip glowing brightly.

"What are you doing?" Josie yelped.

"Scanning you."

"Ask first, next time. And scanning for what?"

Releasing a button on the sonic, the Doctor pulled her arm back. "Animae particles. You're dripping in them."

Josie looked down at her hands, her mouth agape as tiny, golden tadpoles whizzed around her body. The tadpoles, which I guessed were the animae particles the Doctor had mentioned, were so luminous that Josie looked as if she were glowing.

"What the hell? Are these animae particles?" she asked, twisting her hands as the particles flew in between her fingers.

"They were developed by the Artificers of Wrall," the Doctor explained, "a reclusive order of monks who used them to animate the illuminations in their holy texts. _That_ explains what happened to your paintings! You must have unknowingly impregnated them with some of the particles, giving them some semblance of life. But that's not enough, not on its own." She frowned and tapped the tip of her sonic against her temple as she thought. "There's some other force at play," she mumbled. "There must be. Perhaps something catalyzed by the arrival of the TARDIS-"

"Doctor!" Josie called. The glow of the animae particles had started to grow stronger, threatening to drown Josie in their light.

A quick flick of the sonic turned the particles off, so to speak. The Doctor smiled apologetically. "Sorry! Now, what was I saying?"

"I don't know!" Josie yelped. "None of it made any sense! I'm not psychic!"

The Doctor's face lit up a moment later. She gasped and put a hand on Josie's shoulder. "That's it! Oh, brilliant, Josie, brilliant!"

A loud thud from the opposite side of the door made me gasp. Mrs. Fellowes had grabbed a coat stand and was holding it before her like a staff, somewhat reminiscent of Gabrielle from _Xena_. She tried to tell the Doctor that the Witherkin were breaking through, but the Time Lady was too busy talking to herself to notice. I caught only every few words, but managed to piece together that she had left an old telepathic circuit at Josie's house and that it had somehow activated with the arrival of the TARDIS.

"If it's interacting with the animae particles, it could explain what's bringing your paintings to life!" she said to Josie.

Josie clutched her head, her mouth twisted into a frown. "Doctor, I don't understand!"

" _Doctor!_ " Mrs. Fellowes screamed.

The door had splintered in the middle where the arm of a Witherkin had broken through the wood. The coat stand swung through the air as the rest of the door shattered and the Witherkin stepped through the doorway. I felt the Doctor's arm brush over my stomach before I saw it, her hand resting on my hip as she placed herself in front of me. My hand found its way to her shoulder where I gripped her coat until my knuckles turned white. The appearance of a second Witherkin made my body turn rigid.

"Careful now. We don't want anyone to get hurt," said the Doctor, although I wasn't sure if she was speaking to the rest of us or the Witherkin. "They only only want to talk us on a walk to the village cross."

Still brandishing the coat stand, Mrs. Fellowes glared stubbornly at the two creatures. I spotted Josie shuffle towards the pub entrance from the corner of my eye and followed her lead, desperate to get away from whatever danger the Witherkin presented. The Doctor glanced over her shoulder at me, then back at the Witherkin as they took a rumbling step forward.

"I think there's nothing else for it," she sighed. Lifting both arms into the air, the Doctor said, "Take me to your leader!"

The Doctor and Mrs. Fellowes were grabbed by the two Witherkin as another entered the pub behind them. The coat stand clattered to the floor and I paced backwards as the third Witherkin advanced on Josie and I.

"We'll keep them busy, Josie! You know what to do!"

"I don't! I-I have no idea!"

The Doctor grunted as the Witherkin guided her towards the doorway, her arms held behind her back. "Do what you do best!" She strained against the Witherkin's grip, half shouting over her shoulder as she was pushed outside. "You decide how the story ends!"

Dodging the remaining Witherkin's outstretched arm as it swooped overhead, I turned and bolted for the entrance. Josie appeared by my side, then shot past me like a bullet. I felt the Witherkin's footsteps shake the earth. Josie was several paces ahead of me, sprinting down the street with her ponytail whipping back and forth in the wind. By the time we reached her house, having to hide myself behind a large shrub as another pair of Witherkin plodded by, I was having a hard time catching my breath. As I've always said, I'm a bit like Gimli: able to sprint short distances, but not built for long distance or endurance running.

I darted to the front door once the creatures were out of sight, but the door was locked. I pounded my fist against the door, shout-whispering Josie's name, but the door wasn't unlocked. I pressed my ear to the door and tried to listen for the sound of her voice or footsteps, but heard nothing. Uncomfortable being in plain sight, I speed-walked around the house to the backyard, passing through the open gate that divided each yard, and found the back door open as well.

"Josie?" I called, sliding the glass door shut behind me. "It's me. Are you here?"

"In the front!"

Racing down the hallway, I padded into the living room to see the woman sitting at her easel painting. In the middle of the pink and purple canvas was the Doctor, her face devoid of any features and her coat half painted. "What are you doing?"

"The Doctor said t'do what I do best. _This_ is what I do best! I-If I'm right, then maybe this is the answer!"

A few hasty brushstrokes later, the Doctor's coat was completed and her facial features were filled in. Josie had hardly lifted her brush from the canvas when the Doctor's hand came to life, fingers grasping at air as her arm stuck out from the canvas. Josie jumped up and stumbled back a step, her paintbrush falling to the floor as the rest of the Doctor stepped out of the canvas. Although Josie was a great artist, there was something off about the Doctor's face. It was emotionless and her eyes were tiny, moderately horrifying black dots below texture less eyebrows. She brushed past us both to stand by the bookshelf where the real Doctor had rummaged through a pile of stuff earlier. Digging around in the mess the real Doctor had made, the animated Doctor picked up the same metallic square that I had seen before and threw it to the ground. It shattered into a dozen pieces and then the animated Doctor faded away. She reappeared on the canvas in the same position Josie had painted her in, but with no semblance of life.

Josie turned to me, her eyes wide. "Did... Did I do it?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"We should go back to the pub."

"Do we have to go _all_ the way back?" I groaned. "Don't you have a car? Or a bike?"

"No, neither. But we have t'get back. If I didn't do this right, then maybe the Doctor can help."

As Josie started for the front door, it suddenly occurred to me that I had seen something in the backyard, having dismissed it completely at the time. "Wait," I said. "I think I know how to get us there."

* * *

"It's-! Oh, my God, it's beautiful!" I could see Josie spinning around in slow circles, her head tilted back. "How does it _do_ that?"

I grumbled a vague, unsure response as I tapped away at the controls. As far as I could tell, there were no telepathic circuits on the console like in the Twelfth Doctor's TARDIS, which meant I had to try and figure out how to either locate the Doctor or find a map of Josie's village. Since the first option felt more challenging, I decided on asking Josie for the name of her village and locating the pub on a map. Once I'd entered the date, time, and village name onto the scanner, a map appeared and I was able to lock onto the pub's coordinates. Throwing the dematerialization lever, I smiled proudly and let the TARDIS do the rest.

Josie followed me outside and I felt my heart swell with pride when I saw that we had materialized inside pub without any problems. She raced towards the back of the building, climbing over the broken remnants of the door and then stumbling into the yard; I stayed close to the TARDIS. Although I couldn't see any Ice Warriors or Witherkin, I didn't want to risk getting captured. I squinted and saw Josie leap forward to embrace someone. _The Doctor!_ I realized.

Moving to the doorway, I rested my hand against the frame and looked around the yard. There were no monsters in sight and the townspeople were chattering pleasantly in the courtyard. The Doctor was speaking to Josie, her hands resting on the painter's shoulders as she smiled. Then she tilted to the side and her eyes landed on me.

"Is it safe?" I called.

"Yes!"

The Doctor started for the pub with an arm around Josie's shoulders, the pair falling into step as they chatted softly. "She did it!" the Doctor beamed once she was in earshot. "Josie Day, you saved your village!"

She shrugged nonchalantly, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder with a sarcastic smile. "All in a day's work, Doctor!" Her smile turned genuine and she looked from me to the Time Lady. "So, back home?"

The Doctor nodded. " _Jane Eyre_ awaits!"

* * *

 **Author's Note:** **This chapter is a decent length (finally!) and I thought it was really fun to adapt a comic story. I'm planning to do more of these in the future, so let me know what you think!**


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